


The First Rebel

by Linquist



Series: All You Have is Your Fire [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Neglect, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Panic Attacks, Slow Burn, also like so many knives in here, also when I say slow burn I mean it, as in lets make an OC suffer so the ones we love don't have to, can i reemphasize slow burn because I feel like I should, it will eventually be a cara gale story but it is a Cara story first, moved to mature for violence in the games, there's some dogs in there somewhere because sometimes we do deserve nice things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2020-11-27 10:56:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 69,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20947199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linquist/pseuds/Linquist
Summary: (Formerly titled All You Have Is Your Fire)Cara Lynnwood was in no way the first rebel and tales of her being so were greatly exaggerated. But whether that title is true or not, this is the story of how that untruth came to be.The 75th Hunger Games are announced. For the Quarter Quell, to prove the powerlessness of even the beloved victors, the Tributes are chosen from the families of previous victors. Panem is prepared to grieve the loss of Primrose Everdeen. The Rebellion is posed to use it. But both Panem and the rebels have forgotten one thing: there was a victor before Haymitch and her granddaughter will make a choice no one is prepared for.





	1. All you have is your fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Quarter Quell is announced and Haymitch comes to terms with it, only for someone to make a decision no one expected.

Haymitch was drinking before the first shot of Katniss (_ a goddamn child _) in her wedding dress and he knew what was coming before Panem’s anthem even began to play. If he had ever listened to Effie’s advice and if he had ever visited that Capitol shrink, he wouldn’t have been sitting alone, surrounded by his garbage, and waiting for the announcement he didn’t really need to hear. 

Actually, several things about this scene would have probably been different.

Maybe if he had just cracked open a bottle a couple hours earlier he wouldn’t have been conscious for the second reading of the cards in his lifetime. The worst part of everything was how little Haymitch actually remembered the last one. He wasn’t sure if that particular memory had been clouded by liquor or if it was just that he had been arrogant enough to never seriously believe his name would have been drawn.

Back then he had a girl and a family. This time he knew he wasn’t going to forget. 

When it became clear that it really is the reading of the cards, Haymitch didn’t need to hear Snow’s historical jacking off about the lessons of the previous quells. In truth, he didn’t need to hear the card itself and certainly not the moralizations of it. He had guessed it from the moment they had stepped off the train to see Prim Everdeen sitting on Gale Hawthorne’s shoulders.

Snow takes the envelope from the little boy in the crisp white suit and carefully opens it.

“On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from the relatives of previous victors.”

Sometimes with the Capitol it is a mining accident and a collapsed block. Sometimes it is the Games. But there are always consequences and Snow makes sure that you are alive to see it. You don’t have to kill someone; not so long as you scrape out everything inside of them. Take out the passion, the spark, the life, and leave them there as a shell with alcohol and morphling.

The first person to make it to his house was Peeta. This didn’t really surprise Haymitch, as he was sure Katniss was dealing with either her sister’s meltdown or her own.

Haymitch didn’t think it was his drink that made Peeta seem so shell shocked. He fell into the chair across from him (having first to knock away a pile of trash which had already taken up residence) and sat there with a dumbstruck look on his face.

“Well, Peeta, at least this time it doesn’t have to be about you, huh?” He slurred, not caring if he was either unclear or causing offense.

“Why Katniss?” Peeta asked, voicing straining. “Why not come after me too? Where are they going to even get a boy tribute? No one in my family is eligible for reaping.”

“You weren’t the one to hold out the berries boy,” he grumbles, feeling his anger rise. _ And we all knew the only fight you cared about was Katniss. _“And aren’t you forgetting something? Katniss has a cousin.”

Confusion clouded Peeta’s eyes and knit his brow. “Wait, _ Gale _? But they’re not even really cousins! And he isn’t even of reaping age.”

Haymitch scowled and tried to remind himself that it wasn’t Peeta that he hated. After a few more swigs of the bottle, he slammed it down. “Gale’s got a kid brother, doesn’t he?”

Peeta looked more horrified in the dark of his disgusting dining room than Haymitch had ever seen him in the horror of his own games. To be honest, he was half expecting that to be the end of it. He was contemplating whether he would take his bottle to his bed before or after Peeta finally got up to leave.

Before he made up his mind, a rapid knock sounded at his door. For a split second, his drink-addled mind thought he was somewhere else; some other horrible night in the same chair, where it wouldn’t be Katniss on the other side of his door. 

How many years had it been? How many since he thought of her? 

It was Peeta who finally collected himself enough to open the door.

It was Katniss and it was not those other nights. Peeta said something to her which neither of them seemed to hear. When she stepped into the room, Katniss’s face was deathly pale and as gray as her eyes. Her expression contained a manic composure Haymitch had never seen her wear before. 

“There was another victor,” she demands, slamming her hands down on the table. The force knocks the bottle off the table and no one notices the sound of the glass shattering on the floor. 

_ I know _, Haymitch thinks and he vaguely registers the stinging on his leg. He suspects it isn't white liquor dripping down his ankle.

“There was another victor,” Katniss pleads this time. “My mother said she had a daughter, a family.”

Idly, Haymitch wonders if Katniss realizes what she is begging for. If in a few days, when the horror had lost the edge of its immediacy, she would feel regret for it. Haymitch doubted it. Maybe if it had been anyone else but Prim.

“Yeah, my mentor had a kid.” His voice was hoarse and he hoped it sounded like his normal gruffness. “Girl got knocked up at 16. It was probably the only thing that kept her out of the games and the Capitol didn’t like that. Addelise got left to raise the girl after the accident. She’s still running around somewhere in Twelve last I heard.”

“Is she eligible for Reaping?” Peeta finally breaks in, both hopeful and full of shame. 

“Should be, yeah,” he said, wishing his liquor was in his hand and not mixing with his blood on the floor. “But if you think it’s her name that’s gonna be drawn, you’re both idiots.”

Katniss slumped into the chair Peeta had abandoned, face collapsed in her arms. Peeta hesitated, hand fluttering over her shoulder, but he eventually caved and allowed his hand to rub circles over her back. 

“We’ve got time. We’ll train them. We’ll make them into careers. We can win this,” Peeta tried to reassure her.

Haymitch didn’t feel the need to point out there was no way the Capitol was going to let two tributes come home this time. He wanted to tell them a lot more than that, but they were kids. Hadn’t Katniss already shown she wasn’t ready, no matter what she said?

He hadn’t figured out what he was going to say when Katniss decided to speak first. She raised her head just a couple inches, eyes red and puffy. “What’s her name? The other girl?”

“Cara,” he tells her. The only thing he is sure he _can_ tell her. “Cara Lynnwood. 

He must have passed out after that. His house was empty when he came to on the couch and someone - probably Peeta - had patched up the gash on his leg. Someone - probably Peeta - had cleared his cabinet of liquor bottles. Haymitch was pretty confident he hadn’t found every hidden stash in the house, but he didn’t have the energy to check. 

That was where Hazelle Hawthorne found him when she came herself, a bottle in hand. They busted it open together when the first promotional footage began to air on the TV - conveniently focused far more on Katniss’s short legacy than that of Addelise Lynnwood’s.

It became somewhat of a routine of theirs.

Periodically there would be features on the 37th Hunger Games. The arena had been a dry, dead forest and Addelise had finally won when a foolish tribute set it ablaze by accident and she succeeded in outrunning her fellow tributes. Most had already severely injured themselves in a fight against each other. This, of course, was connected to the ‘Girl on Fire’ and Cara Lynnwood remained a largely ignored figure in the media.

Haymitch had thought he could never hate the Capitol more than he already did. He had been absolutely wrong. His fantasies of what the world would be when Snow was dead became more colorful. More than that, they helped to (somewhat) wean him off his drink. 

Twelve wasn’t ready for a revolt. But other places were and looking at Cray’s cold, dead eyes, Haymitch thought he could maybe pick up the slack. 

His slightly more frequent sobriety was convenient for the training regimen Peeta had outlined for Prim and Rory. But no amount of physical training, snare lessons, or anything else Peeta came up changed them into anything but thirteen year old kids. They were just kids in slightly better shape.

When Reaping Day finally came, Rory and Prim were the last tributes to arrive. Standing alone in the roped off section, back ramrod straight was a young woman in an outdated but elegant dress of light green silk. That dress tickled something in his memory, something he couldn’t quite place. But he thought it might fit in well with the rebellion. 

She was too healthy looking for District Twelve. Cara Lynnwood didn’t look like someone who had spent much time going hungry. She wasn’t any taller than Katniss, but the merchant blond waves and the unnameable vitality about her set her far apart. 

When they've taken their places on stage, Haymitch glances at Katniss, keeping his bored expression pinned in place. 

He wonders if Katniss hates her. Cara stood there in a dress Katniss could never have dreamed of buying Primrose before the games, holding onto the remarkable good luck of being forgotten.

There was no choice but to let Prim and Rory take their places alone. From their view on the stage, their view of the tributes is far improved. Cara does not ignore Prim as he might have expected. Instead, she turns and lays a hand on Prim’s shoulder. Something she says somehow is able to make Prim giggle.

That giggle plays on repeat in his head.

He can see the redness of Cara’s hands, how worn and calloused they are even from a distance. He isn't quite sure, but her left hand looks almost disfigured. She was taken in by the tanners, he remembers. He didn’t know them much, but guessed if she worked in the family business it was not the sort to be kind to her hands. 

In eight years, Haymitch was not sure if he had ever seen her. The ability to be forgotten was a skill that Cara Lynnwood has likely been surviving on half her life.

The Reaping began as quickly and moved as quickly as anyone could have expected. Effie stepped out looking pale and shaky, only made more dramatic by her shining gold makeup and wig. Haymitch couldn’t say he paid attention to her ‘ladies first!’ line until her fingers had scrabbled between the two scraps of paper.

Snatching one, Effie’s face visibly falls as she reads “Primrose Everdeen. Sister of Katniss Everdeen.”

Haymitch knows the camera is flashing between Katniss and Prim and he is already off somewhere far away himself. His mind is already on the strategies they had been working on, the sponsors he would be calling, and the game that was going on behind the arena they were bound for. 

He doesn’t catch it and it doesn’t look like Katniss did either. But Peeta does and he grabs tightly onto Katniss’s hand.

In the audience, Hannah Everdeen is stunned and clutching onto Hazelle’s arm. Effie is frozen, mouth gaping like a fish. 

And so Cara Lynnwood repeats herself once more, hardened expression in place and broadcasted for all of Panem to see. 

“I volunteer.”


	2. Black clouds are behind me, I now can see ahead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reaping Day goes very differently for Cara than Katniss. She finds her way to the stage eventually, but not without surprises of her own.

The woods smelled of summer the morning of the Reaping. In another year, I might have felt at ease. Forgotten by the Capitol and with only one tesserae taken out in my name, my odds are certainly far better than those of most of my peers. In this sense at least, I have fulfilled the wish of my grandmother. For the last eight years, that has been the only goal I have worked towards. 

If it were a different year, now that I am 18, I would now be confronted with what exactly I’m supposed to be working towards once this day is done. The day would end and all I would have to look forward to would be days spent in the tanning vats, until eventually I tire of doing Tobiah’s work for no pay and leave the glorified tool shed that has been my home.

It is not, however, a different year. 

I try to enjoy the morning air; a privilege I haven’t had often since I took over most of the work in the tanning house. More often than not, my only chance to slip away came when the rest of my father’s family had returned to their rooms above the shop. There had been occasional Sunday mornings, but those had grown fewer and far between the more years passed. 

Sitting on the edge of the creek, my feet bare and pants rolled up, I allow myself to simply enjoy the feeling of the rolling water over my toes. Periodically, small fish bump up against me or nibble to see if I am anything worth eating. They all move on, small enough that I’m sure they’ll slip right through the trap that I’ve left downstream. 

It had been my grandmother who taught me to weave that trap. It had been one of the lessons she taught me at night, after the tutors and instructors from the Capitol had left. My painting lessons, history classes, and literary studies were all my responsibilities during daylight. When night had fallen, Addelise would take me up to the attic and I would learn to tie snares, weave traps, and even on occasion throw knives. At the time, at six, seven, eight years old, I had not understood these lessons. But Addelise was the one person in this world that I loved, even then, and I was not about to question her when she told me to keep these lessons secret.

They make more sense in the woods and, now, when I know what this day is bringing. 

The sun is telling me that it must almost be noon and I remind myself to eat, picking up another of the blackberries I’ve collected out on the rock beside me. Not far away are the remains of the rabbit I cooked this morning, but even that feels too heavy on top of the knot already in my stomach.

Idly, I wonder why the dogs have not yet shown up to beg for scraps, but I guess they’re as familiar with my usual schedule as I am. They would not think to come looking for me when the sun is so high in the sky. A small part of me feels a twinge of regret, but it might be better this way. I have few emotional attachments here in Twelve and the feral dogs which have grown to like me are most of them. 

Finishing off the blackberries, I shuck off my clothes and slip into the deeper waters of the bend in the creek. My toes can just barely touch the bottom if I reach, but that depth only worried me when I was far smaller than I am now. It seems far easier to wash away the sweat here than to try to wrangle access to the bath from Tobiah. 

In the first few weeks after my grandmother’s death, I had still held out hope that life with my father’s family would be livable - if not enjoyable. After the funeral, I was dropped on their doorstep by Capitol workers. To their credit, they did not turn me away to live in the community home - something that would have been as good as a death sentence to a ten year old girl. But I know there is little else I can give them beyond that. There had not been room for one more above the shop, I had been told, but there was room behind the tanning house. 

Room turned out to be an unused shed where Tobiah had left a threadbare mattress and a table. Having lived ten years in privilege at Victor’s Village, I had been sure that this would be what killed me - especially since the fall was soon to arrive and, with it, colder nights. But even in this, I had adapted. I had the old quilt from my grandmother and used my bundled clothes for a pillow.

The danger had quickly revealed itself to be my unwelcome status in Tobiah’s home. After some meals, he would send out one of the boys with scraps from the table - whatever might have been left over. But with three sons and the poverty in District Twelve, little was rarely left. Or if there was, he was rarely inclined to give it to me.

It was hunger that had finally driven me to the meadow by the fence, digging for dandelions and edible plants. It had been almost a full month since the funeral and I knew I would be too weak to do it if I waited much longer.

It was there, in the early morning light, that I had watched a man and a young girl check to see if the electric fence was turned on and then slip into the woods.

It was another two days before I worked up the courage to go through the fence myself, but hunger was what finally gave me my courage. If I had need to worry about someone else - my cousins, perhaps - it might have been harder to find enough food. But as one young girl alone, I gorged myself in the woods that day. I came back more and more, remembering the snares and traps that Addelise had taught me, until eventually I had both the bounty and the courage to make my way into the Hob.

The first bit of money I made was spent on a cluster of knives that we all pretended were meant for cutting dinner. The second was to buy a little white dress with pretty crocheted detailing that I turned into curtains for my window. 

There were predators to contend with, naturally. To most of them, I am sure I seemed like easy pickings. There was one occasion where I had barely spotted the wildcat before it lunged, barely had time to throw my knife and catch it firmly between the eyes. Blessedly, its claws had missed and it was dead before it slammed into me, knocking me to the ground and the breath from my lungs. I was 11 then and had briefly been something of a celebrity in the Hob when I managed to drag in a cat that was heavier than me.

When I was thirteen, Tobiah had decided to put me to work in the tanning house - since I lived there already - and life with them somewhat improved. But it had restricted my time in the woods to evenings and Sundays, eventually necessitating my one tesserae. It was one of those evening trips where a pack of feral dogs had chased me up a tree and seemed uninterested in leaving once they had done so. With an armload of my catch, I had slowly bribed them with pieces of squirrel and rabbit, before finally throwing the entirety of it as far from my tree as I could manage and running. 

This happened on two more occasions before the dogs finally decided I was a better source of food alive than eaten. At first they only kept to the shadows and came to beg when I went to my snares, but eventually they became closer hunting companions than that. I had little skill with a bow, relying upon snares and what I could catch with my knives. With their help, I could wound larger prey and they would then bring it down. Eventually they would even stay with me when they had eaten and I had finished my own dinner, still sitting by the fire I had used to cook in.

As always, I feel something tighten in my chest when I remember the first time one of them placed their head in my lap and I agree with my earlier assessment: it is better that today they are not here.

I had known within moments of the Quell’s announcement that I would be going to the Games. My time honoring Addelise’s wishes were passed. I had been in the town square for that announcement, but I successfully managed to avoid most of the programming on the TV in the couple months between the announcement and today. I knew enough to know Katniss Everdeen’s family, of course - who didn’t? - and that included the bracket of  _ cousins _ that had emerged out of the last games. 

What surprised me more than it should have was that it had taken a full month before any of my peers even realized who I was. They did not immediately pick up on the connection between my name and that of Addelise Lynnwood - Victor of the 37th Hunger Games. There were only short features on her and mentions of her granddaughter, interspersed between longer segments on Katniss and Primrose Everdeen. No one thought to consider the cousin of the tanner’s boys. It had been my life’s work to avoid human attention.

Dragging myself out of the creek, I lay myself out on the rocks to dry, slowly combing my fingers through my hair. It helped, I think, that there is little resemblance between myself and the Addelise Lynnwood shown in the promotional footage. I have my father’s fairer skin and the blond hair of his merchant family. My grandmother appears only in the set of my Seam gray eyes and possibly in the tilt of my mouth when I smile. Perhaps the name ‘Lynnwood’ might have clued them in more, if I had been noticed much at all. 

I could tell, however, the day they figured it out. While no one approached me or spoke more words than were absolutely necessary, I could sense the shift in the room. For the first time, the space between myself and the rest of my world was no longer empty. Instead, it filled with tension and fear, as if they somehow feared that the curse of a Victor’s blood could pass onto them. 

It would not, but I hardly planned on disabusing them of this notion when it allowed me my the privacy to come to terms with that was happening. 

It must be pushing one by the time my skin has dried in the sun and I redress. I know I only have an hour to stop by my home one last time before I am expected to be in the square. I move faster through the woods this time, more careless and noisy than I usually am. But I am not disturbed by dogs or predators and I make it to the fence unimpeded. 

Before, I had always slipped through the hole in the fence near the seam - the first one I had used. But since the fences had been turned on, I had been forced to jump between two trees farther from the village. It takes longer, but the back road gets me back in good enough time. All I plan to do is change out of my hunting clothes anyways. I don’t feel enough sentimentality to hang around.

I am just thinking I will make it when I turn the corner into the tanning house, to make sure the skins are laid out for Tobiah or the boys to finish this evening. What I do not expect is to find someone standing before the work tables. My heart stalls in my chest for a moment, some part of me foolishly thinking that the Capitol has sent someone to make sure I do not follow through with my plans. But it is only Roe, the youngest of my cousins.

Roe is only 14 but he stands a foot taller than me. He is all knobbly knees and elbows, not yet grown into his hands and feet. We share the same fair skin and hair, but I think this has more to do with merchant blood than any real family resemblance. He has spent less time here than either of his brothers and his hands are smooth and clean to prove it. I don’t begrudge him that. 

He is rude and rowdy, just like Arlen and Neely, but he lacks their abrasiveness and he does not leer at me the way they sometimes do. Perhaps ‘not as bad’ is not the highest praise one can offer, but I have dared to allow myself the hope that Roe could grow into a better man than the examples he has in front of him.

He looks uncomfortable but he doesn’t ask me where I have been. I am sure they all have plenty of ideas of how I feed myself, but we all get along better when we don’t discuss it. 

“My father wanted me to remind you to leave out the skins and that you can finish the rest of it after we eat this evening.”

I don’t really think there is anything for me to say to this. It is certainly generous by Tobiah’s standards to say that I can participate in the ‘celebration’ that usually occurs after the Reaping. It suggests some level of compassion for the nerves I must be feeling, but that even he has enough intuition to understand that it will not be my name drawn today. So I just nod and wait for him to leave. But he does not. He just shifts from foot to foot, examining the dust on his shoes and looking as nervous as if  _ he _ was part of the Reaping pool today.

At last, he looks up at me and finally speaks in a halting voice. “You’re not coming home, are you?”

Again, I do not know if there is an answer to this or if one is needed. But Roe, at least, seems to grasp the one thing that so far no one else has. All he does is nod and push away from the table. He walks past me to leave the work room. At my shoulder, he stumbles a little and once he recovers he keeps his gaze down. 

“Good luck, Cara,” he tells me and neither of us look at each other when he leaves.

My own small home is not far from the work. I only have to step outside and turn the corner to get to the doors of my shed. Standing inside, I can touch the walls on either side of me at the same time. Beneath my bed is an old trunk, one that I brought with me when I came here eight years ago. It is coated with a thick layer of dust that catches in my throat when I pull it free and open. I push down my cough and focus on what I am looking for.

In it are several things which I have not thought much of since I left Victor’s Village. There is my great grandmother’s quilt - the one that kept me warm when I first arrived. Several dresses that belonged to my mother and grandmother. A book of recipes compiled by our family over generations. In between each recipe, there are written stories; of life events, of marriages, deaths, and moments of meaning. Beneath it are my old sketchbooks and even a dried out box of paints. Tucked in between the dresses, there is my grandmother’s Victor’s crown. For a split second of insanity, I consider wearing it. But Addelise must already be rolling over in her grave, there was no point to baiting death any more than I already plan to. 

Setting that act of rebellion aside, I instead pull out a silk dress of a warm light green. It was the dress my mother wore to her final Reaping. I doubt anyone will know or remember the significance, but I will. In this way, I will hold the Capitol accountable for her death, even if it is in one small, wordless way that no one but me will hear.

When I have donned the dress and the matching silk ribbon is cinching my waist, I leave my home in the tanning house for what I know to be the last time. I walk alone to the Reaping.

I arrive early; not by much, only ten minutes at most. But given the reluctance of my District, I cannot be surprised that they only begin flooding the square a couple of minutes before the required time. I can certainly feel their eyes on me, where I stand alone. I do not look, but I can feel the resentment in their gazes. They all understand, in some form or another, that it is not me who will pay the price for my family. No one knows me well enough to have anything bad to say, only a few people from the Hob even recognizing me beyond what can be said in passing. But I have not given them any room to love me either, and I cannot blame them for setting their hearts on the side of Primrose Everdeen. Even I, in the little I know of her, cannot help but like her.

I can feel the change in the air when the families arrive. The hushed murmurs shift into an eerie quiet and I do not need to hear the small footfalls of a young girl to know that Primrose has reached my side.

Primrose Everdeen clearly has no idea where to look and I can see the tremors that are starting to overcome her. The cameras are watching and I know they’re looking to grab onto any weakness they can find. I place a hand on her shoulder and I know I managed to say something to draw out her nervous laugh, but my eyes finally rest upon the families and every thought of it flies from my head.

I know him.

The boy - man, really - that stands with Katniss and his own family. Gale, I realize. Gale Hawthorne. I look away without letting my gaze stay too long and I know my expression is neutral - judging by the screens which currently show Primrose’s nervous face and my apparent boredom. But beneath it all, I am deeply, deeply disturbed. 

It isn’t as if I haven’t known what Gale Hawthorne looks like. He has been all over the news coverage of District 12 for the last year. I even vaguely understand that he must be in the year above me at school, or was before he graduated and went to the mines. But there is still some great sense of familiarity. I know him from somewhere, but I cannot place it.

Sparing one last untroubled glance around the square, I catch sight of Gale in the corner of my gaze. He is frowning, which makes sense given the presence of his younger brother as the only possible male tribute for District 12. But it almost seems like he is puzzling something out himself.

It hits me the same time it hits him, I think. He looks for just a moment, like the air has been knocked out of him and that is certainly how I feel. But there’s no time. I do not have it for him or he for me as the moment of his brother’s reaping comes closer.

It is mechanical for me; when they draw Primrose’s name and I volunteer. I can’t feel anything, even my fingers feel numb, and it is almost as if no one heard me - though it is clear everyone has. Regardless, I raise my voice and say it again. 

“I volunteer.”

You could have heard a whisper in the square as I squeeze Primrose’s shoulder and approach the steps. I have made it to the steps by the time the peacekeepers have processed this turn of events and move forward to escort me. To make up for this lapse, they painfully yank my arms forward, but I manage to keep my balance and I rise up the steps on even footing. 

Somehow Effie Trinket has grown paler and her mouth gapes like something out of a cartoon. Behind her, Katniss Everdeen’s face is frozen and as emotionless as think mine is. Peeta Mellark looks like someone has struck him and Haymitch Abernathy looks grim. Gravely and hauntingly grim. 

I take my place, unguided, where I know I need to be and wait for Effie to rouse herself.

“Well!” She trilled. “This is certainly an exciting turn of events. Ca - How about we have our new tribute give us her name and the Victor she hails from?”

“Cara Lynnwood,” I say, letting my voice remain level and my face reveal nothing. “I am the granddaughter of Addelise Lynnwood.”

“Well! What a legacy to fulfill!” Effie fretted again, eyes not able to fully restrain her unease. “But now! Onto the boys!”

There is only one name in the bowl for the boys and only one boy who stands in the roped off section. When I look at him straight on for the first time, I am struck by the similarities to Gale. He wears the same steady features and the same set of his eyes and brow. He looks younger than Roe and just as gangly. I resist the urge to find my cousins in the audience while Effie’s long, golden nails scraped the bottom of the glass bowl to catch the one scrap of paper.

“Rory Hawthorne,” she reads, voice trembling. “Cousin of Katniss Everdeen.”

The boy is escorted up the steps, seemingly as numb as I feel. When Effie called for applause, I am sure we all expect the deadened silence. There is no salute this time, I suppose because of the combination of shock, common sense, and the fact that I am far more a stranger to this district than Katniss has ever been.

The longest conversation I have ever had within anyone present was with a man whose name I did not know until today - nor he mine, I assume. There are no memories of me to miss and no one left to grieve for me.

This is best. This is right, to the extent that anything today can be right. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't plan on posting another chapter for another few days, but I wanted Cara's voice to be out in the world sooner than later. It is only beginning, of course, but I hope you enjoyed this chapter and look forward to what you think of it.  
Also if you are coming back, you might notice a last name change. I think I got it everywhere, but feel free to point it out if I missed one.
> 
> As always, comments, kudos, and brutal critiques are appreciated.


	3. When we all fall asleep, where do we go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An evening in the woods is remembered and a second conversation is had. It isn't quite goodbye, but maybe it is not the end.

When I was still a few months shy of 15, I became much bolder in the woods once evening had settled. The dogs warmed to me and now would find their way to my side. It was always easier to escape Tobiah’s notice when the work was done and evenings in the woods soothed me now that I wasn’t alone.

But I had known something was wrong the moment I slipped my way through the fence. I had always avoided the nearest section of the woods, preferring to make my way farther to the north and to the west before beginning my own foraging. I knew of the boy and girl who normally occupied this patch of wood, though I was not sure of what had happened to the man that had once accompanied her. Regardless, I had no interest in an encounter that could result in either a stray arrow or the risk of a conversation.

But on that evening, one of my dogs paced near the fence as I crawled my way through. Whining, she waited for me only long enough for me to catch sight of her. I followed her trail, though she periodically doubled back to ensure I still followed. What I came upon jolted me. In a small clearing, growling and barking, another of my friends thrashed; caught in a snare that had trapped one back leg and raised it above his head. He was clearly attempting to reach the snare with his teeth, but seemed far more likely to bite himself than the rope.

I called his name, making soothing noises, and he flipped towards me with a growl. Once he recognized me, growls turned to a whine. I whispered soothing words to him, crouching to free him while my other companion sniffed around my hands. 

“Stealing is a punishable offense, I’ve heard,” said someone behind me and I whirled. The loose dog immediately went on the defense, growling with hackles raised. I was much more cautious, face to face with an arrow. The bearer of the bow was too enshrouded in shadow to see him clearly, but it was quickly apparent that the arrow was trained on the snarling yellow dog and not me.

“It’s unfortunate then that you’re trying to steal my dog,” I answered, trying to take the measure of him. He had a District 12 accent and I was reasonably hopeful he would not shoot me unarmed. But I was neither certain of this nor truly unarmed. I also was far less confident about the likelihood of him shooting my dogs.

“Fond of pets, are you?” He asked with an eyebrow raised.

“I've always made friends easily,” I said dryly. Holding my fist up beside me, the loose dog sat but did not let off her growling. 

“Your _ friend _ appears to have wandered into my snare,” he noted.

“And if _ you _ keep your snare and _ I _ keep my friends, neither of us will have suffered a loss,” I pointed out. 

He lowered his bow, and took one cautious step forward, but Trinket immediately began to snarl again. This garners a grunt and we are once again facing down his bow.

Deciding that the best course of action was to ignore him, I turned and freed Caesar’s leg and quietly told the two good night. Recognizing the command, but certainly not pleased with it, they slunk away. I was certain they would not go far, but perhaps he wouldn't know that. Straightening up, I turned to face him. 

He dropped his arrow and stepped out of the shadows into the dying light of a fall evening. The light was not enough to see clearly, but I could see enough to realize he was not as much of a man as I had first assumed. He was frowning. His thick black hair, gray eyes, and olive skin identified him as being from the Seam. He could not have been more than couple years older than I and I wondered if I would have recognized him in better light.

Probably not. I usually do my best not to know my peers or be known by them. 

“Bit late for a stroll,” I offered as a peace treaty.

“I was just on my way home,” he answered, not yet decided if he would take it. “But I could say the same to you.” 

His voice was wary and I wondered if he had guessed I could summon my dogs with a whistle. If he guessed there were more than two.

“I have friends in the woods, I like to stop in to see them sometimes,” I explained, and from the way his gaze traveled over me I guessed he was taking note of my blond hair and fair skin.

“And it appears your friend has scared off my dinner,” he commented.

“I usually keep us out of this section of the woods,” I confessed. “I’ve found it to be more … occupied than I am comfortable with. But I often come at this time and they sometimes like to come meet me.”

He doesn't seem pleased with this bit of information and I doubt I have won myself a friend.

“Look,” I began uncomfortably. “You would have been within your rights to shoot Caesar. He _was_ in your snare.” His brow rose at the name and I ignored it. “But I’ve got snares set up in my section of the woods and my food is good for the next few days. I owe you one if you want to see what I’ve caught.”

He seemed to weigh my words, but it seemed that my acknowledgement of a debt tipped the scales. He nodded and I whistled. When several more dogs began to appear around us, he stiffened but warily accepted their presence.

“I’ve never seen the wild dogs act like this,” he noted as I gestured in the direction we would head. 

“Yeah, they tried to eat me,” I agreed and he snorted. “But you feed them squirrels enough times and they grow to like you. I’m not super handy with a bow, so they help keep an eye out and take down bigger game. Pretty much only a mother bear is going to bother you with a pack of dogs.”

He nodded at this but did not seem to think it bore commenting. The woods grew steadily darker and the chill began to settle over the air. It stung my cheeks, but my oversized hunting jacket kept me warm enough. He wore something similar, though much better fitted. I doubted he expected to grow much more. Neither did I, but I certainly didn’t want to have to risk commissioning one twice. 

“I’ve never far in this direction of the woods,” he admitted when we had been walking for awhile in my chosen direction. 

“I like the solitude,” I said and he seemed to accept this as enough reason.

It was nearly half an hour of walking when we began to come across my snares. With another 45 minutes, we had collected six squirrels, a rabbit and a trap of fish from my preferred creek. The only hunter I knew of in this part of the woods was me and that came with the advantage of much more trusting game. I could feel his frustration when I loosed three of the squirrels, used my knife to split them up, and tossed the pieces for the dogs.

I told them good night and, recognizing the phrase, they did not follow us even once their own dinner was finished.

I could feel his disapproval rolling off of him, detaching one squirrel for myself. “Take your fill of the rest of it, I don’t have anywhere to store food and I can’t take them to the Hob until Saturday. I wasn’t expecting to catch this much tonight. I only set them up last night.”

“I don’t know what a Merchant’s kid is doing out here hunting anyways,” he said and I could hear the reproach in his voice. I guessed that the only reason he took what I offered was because I claimed a debt.

“How do you know I’m a merchant’s kid?” I asked, knowing he couldn’t see my small smile in the shadows. “Perhaps I’m some wood nymph that lures foolish men into the woods to feed to my dogs.”

“Well, since they haven’t eaten me yet, I’m going to assume my first guess was correct,” he said evenly.

“I’m no merchant’s daughter,” was the only answer I had for him. “I hunt because I’ve got to eat. I just don’t have anyone else to worry about. I’m guessing you do?”

He neither confirmed nor denied that statement but I took it as a yes.

“I don’t think I’ve noticed you around before,” he admitted.

“I doubt you would. I don’t like to be noticed much. You come out here with a girl sometimes, don’t you?”

He tensed and I guessed he didn’t like knowing that there had been someone out in the woods with them unnoticed. “You’ve been out here with us?”

“Not following or anything, I promise I didn’t find either of you overly interesting,” I assure him in an even voice. “I always felt it prudent to find a different area of the forest. As I said, I prefer not to be noticed.”

They were nearing the fence and he took the catch of prey and the bag I had for the fish. When we slipped under the fence, he was clearly unnerved by the whole thing.  
“Night, bow boy,” I said, raising my rabbit in goodbye.

“Night, nymph,” he answered, shouldering his load. He seemed like he wanted to ask something else, but I was not interested in answering anything. Instead, I disappeared into the darkness in the opposite direction he was going to turn - perhaps seeming to contradict my statement that I was not a merchant’s daughter.

But I had the dim light of evening, the cover of night, and the invisibility I had built up over a lifetime. I would avoid that section of the woods more religiously now. I would be okay.

And I was, until I stood in front of the entire district, feeling their condemnation before the name was even drawn, and I knew he realized who I was. The girl from the woods, the one who ran with dogs. 

When they pulled us away, this was where I retreated into my thoughts. One encounter that meant absolutely nothing. It only stood out to me because of how little I spoke to anyone at all. I register that Rory and I are directed our separate ways and I am alone when I walk into the room for goodbyes. It will be a long hour, as I have little expectation of anyone coming to see me. I wonder briefly if the dogs will miss me, but the thought leaves an odd ache in my chest and I try not to think about it. But it only drags me back to that night once more.

For most of my hour, I am correct. I pass the time sitting on my couch, examining the coal dust settled into the seam of the window's glass panes. The sky is gray and calm, which is not unusual for Twelve but suits my mood fine.

I almost jump, therefore, when - at about forty minutes into my hour - the door opens and in comes Gale Hawthorne. The boy from the woods. I only become aware that I have risen to my feet when I realize that he is not sitting. I kindly ignore the faint red to his eyes and gesture for him to sit across from me. 

“So you’re not a wood nymph,” he says, forcibly light as he sits.

“Seems not,” I assent.

“You're not a merchant’s daughter then,” he admits, looking at me intently. “I didn’t notice that you had Seam eyes that night.”

“My grandmother came from the Seam,” I explain. “She never told us who my grandfather was, but from the photos I have of my mother I’m guessing he was Seam as well.”

“You said you had to feed yourself,” he says and I can hear the reproach he is trying to hold back. I don’t know why it seems to bother him; that the stranger from the woods might have lied to him. “But you live with the tanner.”

“Tobiah always struggled to find enough food to feed me as well,” I say by way of explanation and there is some flash of understanding. “After my grandmother died I had to figure out how to fend for myself somehow.” His eyes move to my hands, clearly weathered by years of work. I see it when he just barely hides a flinch, spotting where my left little finger once was. I think I can feel his anger growing, but I trust that in this instance I am not the target. 

“It seems I owe you this time,” he said calmly. 

“Is it your debt?” I ask curiously.

“As good as,” he dismisses and we sit in silence for a moment. “This was only Rory’s second reaping.”

“The games aren’t over,” I remind him but it seems to do little to raise his mood. He knows as well as I do what the odds were for a 13 year old kid. 

“I can’t ask you,” he says, lowering his head to his hands.

“You don’t have to,” I tell him. “He’s got something to come back to. I don’t.”

“It's not smart to let them hear you talk like that,” he says fiercely. “They’re already going to be angry that you disrupted their plans.”

“You seem to be speaking pretty clearly,” I shoot back. 

He shakes his head. “Nothing we don’t all know.”

Knowing our time is almost out, I raise my chin. “Behind the tanner’s shop is the building where we do our work. It is out of view of the rest of the house. In the toolshed attached to the back, you'll find a trunk. There’s various junk in there, but most important is a book of recipes that belongs to my family. Please keep it safe. The third floorboard from the left wall is loose, if you pry it up you’ll find the box I keep my money in.”

“I don’t want your money,” he protests.

I ignore his frustration. “If I come back I won’t need it. If I don’t, I refuse to let Tobiah have it. That book is priceless to me. Consider if payment for keeping it safe. The money is nothing next to that.”

He seems to understand the value of my book and he has collected enough secondhand anger to wish to keep the money from Tobiah’s hands as well. So he nods, even if I can tell he is reluctant.

We both know that we are running out of time and I cast around for a word that might mean something to someone who knows nothing about me. Though our one conversation (two now, I realize) has been a significant portion of my human interaction for the last several years, it is unlikely I'm more than a blip to him. The truth is there is nothing for me to say. There is nothing that matters. I only matter at all because of what I've just done.

I know that we might have only a minute, if not seconds, and my next words rush out of me. "What if I need Rory to trust me? How can he know that I'm trying to help him? He has no reason to trust me!"

We can hear the Peacekeepers on the other side of the door and the next moment comes so fast, I do not fully process it until later. He pulls something from around his neck and presses it into my hand as they open the door and grab onto his arm. "Show him this when he needs to listen to you," he says urgently, ignoring the peacekeepers who are trying to pull him from the room. "Keep him safe and give them hell, dog girl!"

"I promise!" I yell back and the door slams shut behind them. 

I take what he gave me and put it around my neck. I tuck it under the collar of my dress without looking down.

There is still something left about my life that can matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about saving that memory for later, but I decided I didn't want to wait. It will be a long time before they meet again, but it isn't too bad a place to them leave off. Also decided to do a double upload, since I'm making pretty good progress!
> 
> Once again, comments, kudos, and brutal critiques are all well loved.


	4. If you're lost and lonely, go and figure out why

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cara has a somewhat constructive conversation with her mentors and finally starts to process what she has done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Putting my notes at the start of the chapter this time because I wanted to make sure everyone know that there is going to a description of a panic attack at the end of the chapter. It isn't long or overly detailed. The section begins with the line 'when I fall asleep I'm plagued by dreams'. I love you all and your mental health and safety always, always comes first.
> 
> As they always are, comments, kudos, and brutal critique are my favorite things.

On the train, it becomes clear that I am the outsider of the group.

Yes, Rory is not  _ in  _ the way that Peeta Mellark, Katniss Everdeen, Haymitch Abernathy, and even Effie Trinket are. But he has clearly been spending more time with them in the couple months since the announcement was made. I cannot help but suspect that they have been quietly training Primrose and Rory for the arena. It is a good plan and not one I judge them for. Addelise was training me for the arena as soon as I was hold enough to hold a knife. 

Katniss seems stressed and almost revulsed by my presence. I am reasonably confident I have the measure of it. By volunteering for her sister, she is in some way left in my debt. By removing Primrose from the equation, her next loyalty naturally shifted to Rory. This places her in the uncomfortable position of both owing me and hoping for my death.

But now is not the time for confrontations. It is, apparently, time for dinner. 

“Well,” Haymitch finally says as I refill my teacup and reach for another roll. “I think we can all agree that this was an unexpected turn of events.”

“I was always going to volunteer,” I say and it comes out stiffer than I want it to, so I hide behind a sip of tea. It occurs to me that I have not had this much particular attention since my grandmother was alive. Not since the funeral. Or rather not since the Games before Addelise died, the last that I accompanied her on. No one paid me much mind at the funeral and afterwards I had disappeared into the tool shed behind Tobiah’s house.

“Why,” Katniss finally demands, emotion breaking into her voice. 

Peeta takes her hand and holds it tightly. “I think what Katniss means is we don’t understand why you would volunteer for a girl we’re not sure if you’ve even met.”

I stare at them “She’s thirteen.” 

“You’ve never volunteered before,” Haymitch pointed out. “Not when her name was drawn last year or when we’ve had young tributes before.”

“I’m not going to pretend like I did it because I’m a naturally selfless person,” I huff. “But I’ve also never had time to consider it before. When they announced the Quell, I understood the odds were in my favor” At this, my company glanced around, clearly indicating bugs, but I continue on since I already assumed that to be the case. “I saw a girl who had people to come home to. I don’t. It seemed like simple math.”

Katniss doesn’t answer this. She chooses instead to go back to pretending I’m not here, staring at a spot on the wall about a foot to my left. For a moment, I think Peeta is searching for words. But he seems more confused by what I said than anything else, as if I had presented him with a puzzle he had not yet worked out.

“Do you have any skills which might make you useful in the arena?” Haymitch grunts at last. I think I can see some tightness around his eyes and it strikes me that he was once my neighbor. I wonder if he remembers me at all or if he had been too drunk during my years in Victor’s Village to put a name to a face. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it seems wiser to assume we are starting at ground zero. 

“I’m good with a knife,” I start, considering what I know and how I have survived over the years. “I am also good with snares. I can weave together traps for fish too, if there’s water in the arena and the kind of plants that could work. I can identify edible and poisonous plants, too, if they’re familiar to me. I think I’m pretty strong too,” I tell them and when I look between them I guess we all know where my food came from. “I used to be pretty good at some hand to hand, but I haven’t had practice in years.”

There are eyes are on me and heat starts to rise in my throat. Rather than choke on whatever it is I’m feeling, I go on the defensive.. “Addelise always thought I’d end up here someday,” I admit. “I’m guessing the odds have been in my favor mostly because the Capitol forgot about me after she died.”

“So we’ll brush up on your hand-to-hand,” Haymitch says, though his voice is not exactly friendly. “We’ll talk about your strategy in training once we’ve gotten you both through the opening ceremonies. But this is a good reminder about what we’re going up against. I’m guessing there are going to be plenty of careers this year and they won’t just be from the usual districts. The closer they are to a Victor, the more that Victor has probably worried about their name being drawn.”

I look over at Rory and if we were in a different situation, his discomforted expression might have been comical. He is at least as tall as Gale and I cannot be any taller than Katniss. But I doubt he has the experience that any of the rest of us do - even if he has been training since the announcement.

With a rush of shame, I realize that they likely had no knowledge of my trees. Rory could have been training with a bow in the woods, if I had only thought to inform them. I could have told them of my plans to volunteer for Primrose. I could have helped. But I didn’t. I cannot even claim selfishness. It simply never occurred to me to confide in another person.

Why didn’t I just  _ talk _ to them? They must have been planning this for months. Rory and Primrose had likely discussed strategy and shared ideas. I, in my arrogant good intentions, have knocked it all to pieces.

They don’t say anything about his talents and capabilities. I don’t know if it is because they don’t trust me or because they already know - they are the ones who have been training him. But I can see the way he looks at me now and I recognize that faint trace of fear. 

“I’m guessing I’m not the only one prepared for the arena,” I say, looking pointedly at Rory. “And I’m guessing there’s a good amount of more recent preparation on your end than there is on mine. But between the two of us, I think we have a solid team.”

I think this succeeds in reassuring Rory, at least a little. I can see some of the tension drop from his shoulders. But I think it is counterbalanced by a heightening of our mentors’ nerves. I hurriedly stuff away the last few bites of my roll, knowing that this silence is my queue to leave them to have the conversation they obviously hope to have without me.

My room on the train reminds me of the one I used to have when I lived with Addelise. It might only be the comfort and cleanliness, the lack of dust and stinging scent of chemicals. But it is enough that for a second, I’m frozen with a rush of homesickness for a place I can never go back to.

I wonder if Addelise would be proud of me or angry or both. I can picture her grabbing my collar, intending to yell at me, and crying. This is exactly the sort of thing I think she would have done, which only makes it harder.

She didn’t win the Games with her strength or her skill with weapons. She didn’t really have any. She won because she was smart and faster on her feet. She knew how to weigh the risks of a situation and stay alive. I don’t know for sure - we so rarely talk of it - but I think she might have gone through her Games without killing anyone herself. I know that the promotional videos the Capitol has been airing of her were short and half-done, but surely they might have included footage like that. Wouldn’t they?

When I fall asleep I’m plagued by dreams of howling dogs and the woods on fire. I keep hearing Addelise calling for me, but when I find her it is always a dark haired man with a puzzled frown who wants to know why I lied. I try to tell him but my lungs just fill with smoke. It cuts off my air and saves me from answering, because I don’t know what I’ll tell him. When my head starts to spin because I cannot breathe, I fall to my knees and then on to my side. The man is gone and I am on the train tracks. I can hear the train coming and it is so close that I am sure I am about to die. Instead it is just high enough that it is whizzing over me. It seems to be pulling away my air again and the wind whips against my face with sharp claws. It goes on like this until I am sure I will either suffocate or the train must be about to end.

I suck in one last breath of air and the end of the train slams into me, jolting me upright in my bed. I am not on the tracks. I am in my compartment. But I am still struggling to breathe and I am soaked with sweat. I swing my feet to the side of the bed and stand. My knees are shaking but I manage to make it to my door.

It is dark outside and the train is silent. I’m sure there are attendants somewhere, but I don’t want to see them. There is still a tightness in my chest and my heart is racing. I don’t want to lie back down and I don’t want to think about black haired boys who think I’m a liar. So I decide the best tactic is to take evasive measures.

I don’t know precisely where I’m going, but the back of the train seems as good an idea as any I’ve had so far and I go from compartment to compartment. I think I pass the bar car, which reeks of white liquor and I’m guessing it wasn’t Effie Trinket. I keep going through living areas and dining areas. I don’t look at any of them, but they flash by in the corner of my vision. The sides of my vision go black a little and I wonder if it is because I’m so focused or because I’m half sprinting down the train.

Maybe if I keep going I’ll fall off the end of the train. It must be too late for them to draw another tribute and Rory’s odds can only improve if I fall off the edge of the world and one less tribute enters the arena. 

It feels like my heart is trying to split inside my chest when I burst into the last compartment of the train. But there is no gaping hole for me to fall through. Instead it is a small room that encloses me in thick glass everywhere except for the floor and the wall I just came through. There are no lights and, when I look up, I can see the stars. The trees are a blur around me, moving farther and farther away from me as the train glides on. It is dark, but the moon is bright and I think we must be going through mountains of some kind.

The night sky is so richly velvet blue and the stars are so brilliant, seeming stationary compared to how fast the rest of the world is moving around me. It is so beautiful that it takes my breath away and I forget both the pain in my chest and that I had forgotten how to breathe. 

Rather than think about fire and dreams and goodbyes or let myself get dizzy by trying to watch the trees, I lay down and look up through the curving glass ceiling to watch the stars.

This is where I finally fall asleep. I do not dream.


	5. Watch me make them bow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cara and Rory reach the Capitol. Cara is no girl on fire, but perhaps she is something of her own.

Unbeknownst to me, there is apparently a whirlwind of panic before I am rousted. I only learn about this later from an amused Haymitch, who appreciates the performance I drove Effie into. She apparently came to wake me this morning for my ‘_big, big, big day _!’ and found nothing in my compartment but the tangled sheets I left abandoned on the floor. Naturally, she was convinced I had either fallen off the train or been abducted by out-district bandits.

I am fairly sure Haymitch egged her on, but Peeta was the one to remind her that alarms would have gone off if any window or door had been opened and since the train had not stopped we were unlikely to have picked up any bandits. It is a Capitol attendant who found me, still asleep on the floor of the final compartment, and brings me back to my compartment to ready myself for the day.

I feel bad enough for Effie’s nerves to apologize, but not so bad as to actually care so I’m not sure if it was convincing to anyone but her. But as she was the only one I needed to soothe, I figure it doesn’t matter either way.

I don’t spend too much time getting ready. When Effie calmed down enough to tell me the schedule, she had explained we would arrive in the Capitol within the next few hours and then I would be delivered into the talented hands of my (formerly Katniss’s) prep team. So I shower, but don’t bother to do more than wash away the dried sweat from my nightmare. I am sure my stylist will disapprove of how hastily I pile my hair onto the top of my head, but it is a relief to get it off of the back of my neck.

At breakfast, Haymitch is still amusing himself with poking at Effie and Rory is a little too focused on his potatoes to make for good conversation. I think it might be a good idea to try to close some of this distance between myself and Katniss - since she is technically supposed to be ‘my’ mentor. I ask her if she has any advice or words of warning and she tells me not to be overly attached to my top layer of skin. 

I remember enough of Addelise being prepped to infer what she means, but Peeta has to reassure a shocked Rory that Katniss only means that I am going to be waxed and they don’t make the boys go through much of it anyways. Rory seems to calm at this and even wishes me luck in the hope of soothing my nerves.

I do not laugh and instead nod quite solemnly and tell him I appreciate it. 

An hour doesn’t pass before the Capitol comes within sight of the windows. Both Rory and I are glued to the view - Rory in his awe and me because of the strange and unpleasant nostalgia I feel being back. When we come in sight of the waving and cheering crowd, he starts to wave back before he pulls his hand down and frowns.

I don’t want to wave at all and would be quite content to ignore them in favor of old and familiar sights, but I don’t think this is really what Rory wants to be doing. So instead I plaster a smile on my face and wave at them.

“It’s okay to wave,” I encourage. “Being liked can only help us.”

“Gale says the Capitol is as good as a bunch of mutts,” Rory frowns, looking at me.

I resist the urge to remind him to watch his words. I doubt he is saying anything that the Capitol doesn’t already know about his brother. Instead I shake my head. “They’re not all bad. Some of them don’t know better. I even used to have friends here.”

He looks at me dubiously and I smile. “Is Effie all that bad.”

“I guess not,” he admits reluctantly. “But isn’t it … I don’t know … wrong to make nice with the enemy?”

This word choice _ especially _ makes me want to cut him off, but I think it is a better idea to let Peeta talk to him than risk drawing any more attention towards his words. 

“It’s not wrong to want to give yourself the best odds you can,” I tell him, looking back at the window to smile and wave some more. “And I don’t think your brother would think less of you if you tried to enjoy however much of life you can right now.”

I apparently said the right thing, because, even though he flushes from the top of his head to his chest, I see him smile again and he waves to our audience. 

The further into the Capitol we go, I spot more and more women sporting Katniss’s signature braid and some even seem to be holding up signs with Primrose’s name. They pass too quickly for me to read, but I’m able to guess the gist of it. 

Rory is still waving, but I can feel another person in the room. 

“I guess I’m not the tribute they were waiting for?” I ask dryly.

Peeta comes up beside me, but puts his hand on Rory’s back and joins us in waving. This seems to energize the crowd, who are thrown practically into a frenzy.

“I think they’re thanking you, Cara,” he tells me and I am surprised by the fact that he seems to believe it. I don’t know how to respond to this and I forget to wave for a moment. The train beginning to slow down is what gets me and I turn back to the window as we come into the station.

It occurs to me and both Katniss and Peeta are younger than me. I have a vague recollection of some Capitol propaganda piece talking about their birthdays are and I think they’re both somewhere in the summer. Not long before the Reaping. They’re probably some of the youngest in their pool. Over a year then. I don’t feel older than them. I don’t feel younger than them either. I just feel separate; the way I do with most people I meet. 

But at 18 I must be older than most of the tributes I will be facing in the arena. Rory is not going to be the only kid. But I don't want to think about that right now.

Rory’s enjoyment of the Capitol seems to slip away when we finally come to a stop. He is quickly approaching a thin shade of green by the time his prep team comes to fetch him. Peeta goes with them, reassuring Rory to the extent that I think he is capable of being reassured.

I almost forget to feel dread for myself, as distracted as I am by my sympathy for my fellow tribute. I reminded soon enough when my own prep team boards the train with all the calm of a hurricane. Katniss does _ not _ appear to reassure me and accompany me to my fate.

I hardly know what’s happening when I am tossed into my room at the remake center. Flavius, Venia, and Octavia ‘help’ me take off my clothes and the way they circle me reminds of when the dogs in the woods know I have food. I can remember something similar, though far less brutal when I was little. It was mostly Addelise who was styled, but there were usually a few minutes putting me together. Even at six years old I needed to be presentable for the cameras. 

I can hardly keep up while Flavius crows ecstatic praises for my hair (“now if we could just get this dust out of it, then you could _ truly _ shine!”) all while I am otherwise poked and prodded by Venia and Octavia. Venia is clearly disappointed but not surprised by the presence of my body hair and is just beginning to formulate a plan of action when Octavia starts to wail. 

“Your _hands_,” she cries. “What on earth has been done to your _hands_.”

She is holding them up for the others to see and Flavius actually screams at the sight of the scarred stump where my little finger once was. But Octavia seems almost as disturbed by the blisters, callouses, and discolorations I hardly even notice anymore. I almost feel bad for her, knowing she likely rarely sees signs of hardship or pain, but I feel much better when she begins crying out her horror over what they’ll even be able to do with my nails.

Eventually I am stripped down, buffed, washed, and shampooed, and though periodically my stylists are still a little damp, I foolishly believe the theatrics must be over. But to my foolish surprise, Octavia is still sniffling and even Flavius’s eyes are slightly red as they apply the last of several lotions to my body.

“We do so admire what you did for Katniss’s sister,” Octavia finally whispers, lacking the composition to speak louder. “And though I can’t _ imagine _ what must have been done to your hands, I promise you are going to be the most _ beautiful _tribute at the ceremonies tonight.

My discomfort and unease at their displays slowly soften. They seem more human than they did before. I see more of their soul than I thought they had.

“I trust that I’m in good hands,” I assure her and this is apparently too much for Flavius, who bursts into tears once more. 

I try to remember my realization of their humanity and keep from squirming in discomfort as my nails are painted an iridescent gold. I don’t blame them for their reaction, but that doesn’t mean I know what to do with it. I try to remember the last time that I was faced with someone else’s tears and I think it must have been a night when I pulled Addelise from her nightmares.

I’m not sure if Flavius is still crying, but I’m going to tell myself he isn’t. He is currently behind me, ensuring that my natural waves are settled into more attractive, natural looking waves, so I don't have to face any evidence.

When they are done, they leave almost as quickly as they came but not without a few more sniffles and squeezes of my hands. I am then left standing in the center of the room, polished, buffed, and as naked as the day I was born - upon an actual pedestal I have been placed upon no less.

I am not made to wait long before the door opens again. I idly consider if I should feel self-concous or wish to cover myself, but this thought does not win out. A body is just a body and I’m sure my stylist will have seen many of them. What does strike me is that the man who enters is nothing like I expected him to be.

After Octavia’s green skin and Fluvia’s outlandish hair, I had been expecting something more flamboyant than what I find. He stands before me, more simply human and without need to disguise the fact. He circles me slowly, but his eyes are gentle. They do not leer or glint the way I have seen some men do. He makes me feel somehow more at ease.

When he finally stops to shake my hand, I see that he is handsome without being flashy. His gold eyeliner is the only makeup he wears and it brings out the green in his eyes. It is striking without being overpowering.

“My name is Cinna,” he tells me in a soothing voice. He takes my hand in both of his. “I’ll be your stylist for your time spent in the Capitol. I do hope you’ll forgive me. I was not as prepared for you in my designs. You were a pleasant surprise.”

“As I’ve heard,” I reply dryly, but there is no bite in my voice like there has been before.

His smile is simultaneously sardonic and sympathetic. “I have, however, done my best to rectify this. I was inspired by what you did. Panem needs more people who do what is right for the simple reason that it is right. I want you to have the experience here that you deserve.” 

He pulls a dressing gown off the rack and hands it to me to slip into. At the press of a button an attendant brings in a tray for our lunch and he gestures for me to join him in the comfortable armchairs on the side of the room. It is the most casual meal I have had since leaving Twelve, but I feel more comfortable than I have in months 

He does not press for anything more from me. He does not try to make me open up about how I am feeling or why I did what I did. Nothing about his behavior makes me feel guilty and ashamed. I find myself exchanging stories with him of my time in the Capitol when I was younger and how different it is to be styled as a child. He listens with amused and rapt attention to even the most boring of details, exchanging them for fun stories of his early days on a prep team.

When we are finished eating, he asks me to stand and disrobe so he can help me into my dress. He takes the rather large garment bag from the rack and pulls a billowing mass of gray from it. I have little understanding of fashion, but I don’t think that is why I’m confused. This looks more like the kind of dress that I would wear to the interview and I don’t know what it is that he is planning. But if there is anyone I have met so far whose judgement I trust, it is Cinna’s; so I do not argue or say anything. 

When he has pulled it over my head and and buttoned the back of the bodice, I am surprised by how light it is. The bodice does cling to me, highlighting my figure - certainly not that of the young girl I volunteered for. The sleeves fall off my shoulder and billow in dark and almost transparent shrouds to my fingertips. The skirt expands out in soft lines until it whispers over the ground in layers of ash and smoke and deep, dusty grays. 

He places what seems to be a tiara on the crown of my head - a half circle of gold with delicate filigree - and adjusts where my hair falls over my shoulder. 

He fingers the simple chain around my neck with interest. 

“My token,” I tell him by way of explanation and he seems to understand that I don’t want to say anymore. He lets it slip past the neckline of my dress. 

“I initially made this tiara for Primrose,” he says, stepping back to admire his work. “As Katniss has her crown, I thought she deserved one to call her own. But I think I speak for them both and most of Panem as well, when I say that you deserve a crown of your own.”

“It’s beautiful,” I tell him sincerely and he cracks a grin.

He takes my hand and guides my finger to a point on my tiara where there appears to be a button. “Before you go out, press this. I’m sure you can guess there will be more to the show tonight.”

“Any other instructions?” I ask and he nods once more.

“When you emerge, I don’t want you to wave. I don’t want you to be cold or distance, you can even smile - though please don’t laugh or anything. I simply want you to accept their attentions, but as if you know that their attention is something you deserve.”

He is both playing into my skillset and throwing me out into the unknown. I would not know how to pander to the crowd if that was what he had asked of me, but I don’t feel any more prepared to simply bask in the spotlight. 

“Does Rory have similar instructions?”

“Portia is instructing Rory on what to do,” he assures me. “For now, take a few breaths. It’s almost time.” 

Cinna brings me down to the lowest floor of the Remake Center, where I find that the rest of our team is already waiting for us. Peeta and Katniss are both dressed simply, in elegant black ensembles. Haymitch’s suit, however, is dark gray and more closely resembles what Rory is wearing. 

Rory’s outfit seems paired with mine in color, in the ethereal quality, and in the circlet he wears on his head. However, his suit seems more like something of armor with its buckles and breastplate and the billowing black cape behind him. The makeup he wears accents the strong jaw and dangerous eyes he shares with his brother and that, combined with the way his clothes make him appear bigger and stronger, succeeds in making him look older than his thirteen years.

I am the one who has their attention, however, when I approach. I am not totally sure if this is a positive thing, as Katniss’s gaze seems closer to incredulity than admiration. But if I can hold any kind of attention, I suppose it is better than what I feared.

It was certainly very clear that I am dressed differently from anyone else here. I am conscious of the dirty looks and I can see One and Two with their heads bent together, watching me with daggers in their eyes. The District One tributes could have been siblings with the strength in their muscles and the same dark blond hair. If I am remembering correctly, I think they might be cousins. They could be twins if I based it off of the identical angry looks in their eyes. In contrast, the District Two tributes could not be more different. The girl’s rich, tan skin and dark hair stand out next to the boy’s platinum curls and fair skin. But once again, their bitter expressions pair very well.

I can also see that many of my competitors are wearing light in some form of fashion - regardless of whether it makes sense for their district or costume. I am unsure if I can critique, considering I am just short of wearing a ballgown, but I am guessing formalwear will be all the rage for the opening ceremonies of the 76th Hunger Games. 

We have almost reached our chariot, where our team awaits us, when I hear a loud voice cry out my name.

One of the tributes from District Five has broken away from her team and hurries towards us with delighted eyes. For a split second, I wonder if her delight is a trick and she plans on stabbing me or something. I decide that is unlikely for a variety of reasons. To the credit of her stylist, the light of her outfit at least makes sense, given the fact that she comes from District Five - power. Her black bodysuit is covered in wire-like tubes that seem to faintly glow and illuminate her russet skin and auburn hair.

It is only once I have assessed her as (presently) a non-threat and considered what she wears that I finally pull together her face with my memories.

“Joan?” I exclaim in surprise and she laughs as she throws herself into my arms. The weight settles into my gut alongside my dread as I return her hug.

It has been almost nine years since the last time I saw Joan Tripp on an excursion to the Capitol. Our grandmothers were once friends, my grandmother the victor the year before Porter Tripps’. We were therefore thrown together on any occasions where our grandmothers were together. At least while in the Capitol, we developed the strong bond of two young girls in frequent association.

But this is not the Joan I remember. My Joan was timid but curious, more than willing to follow my lead on any ideas I wanted to chase. Now, years later, we are both almost unrecognizable in looks and temperament. The fact that I did not know she had been reaped says I have paid even less attention than I thought. 

I liked Joan once and in my first year or so in Tobiah’s spare shed, I missed her. I do not want to kill her and I do not want to see her die. I want her to forever remain in my memory as the happy, quiet girl she used to be.

But this, of course, is the intention of the Gamemakers I expect. Even if I was not the intended target.

She says something about us catching up in training the next couple days and, somewhat in a daze, I think I agree. When Cinna and I finally reach the others, I am hurriedly introduced to Portia. I like her almost as instantly as I liked Cinna.

“Making allies already, are we?” Haymitch asks with an eyebrow raised. I want to say something witty or sarcastic but I no more know how to to do that than I know how to be charming or coy. So I simply stay silent and allow Peeta to hand me up into the chariot. 

Cinna and Portia nod and Rory and I press the buttons on our respective headpieces. I cannot see mine, but the glow that comes from above me seems clear enough without the gasps I hear from other chariots.

Rory’s cape does not flicker with fire the way Katniss and Peeta did last year. Instead the black of his cape burns low and hot like an ember. Softer, but still present, the rest of his clothes do the same. His circlet glows like a hot ember as well, periodically sending off sparks. He looks like a live coal that someone crowned prince.

Or perhaps, more accurately, a knight - one out of the secret books my grandmother kept hidden under the floorboards and would sometimes read to me on winter nights when the power was out. 

I am out of time to chase these thoughts as our chariot begins to move, pulling us into the fading evening light. I can see the first two districts pass on the TV screens, waving and winning over the crowd with their smiles. District Three is covered in studded lights- and again, this at least I can understand. The boy is tall and lanky and wearing glasses of all things. He waves with confidence but not charisma. The girl looks no older than 14 and her hand trembles when she waves. They do not receive the same loud cheers that came before them. 

They’re flashing through the other Tributes faster now and I try my best to follow Cinna’s instructions, looking upon the scene with a soft smile. My left hand rests upon the side of the chariot and, on impulse, I drape the other over Rory’s forearm. Next to me, Rory’s other hand is raised in a wave, but he does not smile like I do. He looks fierce. He looks serious. 

It occurs to me, as the screens cycle past seven and eight, that most of the noise I am hearing comes from the screens. I wonder if I should be concerned. Eight, at least, has their normal, wretched tree costumes, whereas 11 flashes by as cows with flaming belts - as if they mean to cook up their tributes for dinner. 

Then, at last, I see Rory and I on the screen and I understand why a hush falls over the crowd. It is interrupted only by the steadily rising tide of murmurs.

Cinna has made me a masterpiece. The shimmering gold and grays of my makeup seems almost celestial - especially with the sparks that flash out from my tiara. It turns my hair into sunlight. I seem to be burning, but more like a star than a fire. But my dress? My dress is smoke and soot in the most impossibly beautiful and elegant form of the words. The bottom of my glowing, gossamer gown is a coal black that burns and shifts in the same way as Rory. But as it rises, the colors move and soften into shades of gray. My sleeves billow open behind me and leave a trail of shimmering smoke in our wake. 

I look royal and powerful. Not in the sense that I have power when I am in the woods with my dogs and my knives. No, I mean powerful in the way I have somehow managed to command the breath of all who see us. Next to me, Rory is no child. He is a knight, just as I suggested, standing by to guard me. Not because of any weakness in me, but because of my value. Because of the self contained strength he carries with him, that Portia has somehow managed to bring out.

Slowly, the murmuring rises into a roar I cannot discern. I think I hear my name and Rory’s, cries both of sobs and even Primrose’s name. The camera flashes to the box where our mentors sit, Haymitch looking bored and Peeta politely interested. Katniss looks almost angry and she grips Peeta’s hands so tight I think she might draw blood.

I wonder if there I was anything I could have done so that Katniss Everdeen would not have hated me, but in any world where she didn’t I doubt we would have met. 

Like Katniss and Peeta’s year, flowers (and even some lacy things) are thrown at us. I catch one rose and hold it my chest with the hand that had been on Rory’s arm. Unsure if this perhaps stretches Cinna’s instructions, I kiss the bloom and hold it aloft for a moment and the crowd goes wild as I lower my hand back down to hold the rose to my torso. They don’t seem to be cheering the way they did for One and Two but neither do they seem able to tear themselves away from us. Even when we reach President Snow for his speech, the screen keeps returning back to us - to my face calmly taking in his speech, not as an excited tribute or shaking child but as my own seat of power. Even as Snow stands before us in his own Capitol and in all of his strength and wealth, I stand above it.

I am no girl on fire. Rory and I are no force of dissension. There is none of the romance or heart of the previous Games. We are outside of and apart from it. Snow holds no sway over us. When his speech is over and we begin to make one last lap before pulling into the training center, I feel Snow’s eyes on me. They are not pleased.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first time I started writing this, this was where I felt like I hit my stride. I finally started hearing Cara's voice while I was playing around with the implications of smoke. I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on the ways we have departed from canon.
> 
> But as you may have guessed, comments, kudos, and brutal critiques are a direct avenue to my heart.


	6. And should the sky by filled with fire and smoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is still the aftermath of the ceremonies. Some events cannot be avoided and Katniss owes Cara another small debt. Claudius Templesmith will not be starting Cara's fan club.

Perhaps I should be bothered by the way they played the opening ceremony. The hand they showed presented Rory as the strong presence and mine as the one to be protected. It paints me as an easy target, but I cannot fault them this. It was how I would have played it if I had been asked. Now Rory stands as neither significant threat or weak link. If one of the careers then underestimates me, I have far more chance than he to leave them with my knife in their throat.

In the lower level of the training center, I can sense Rory’s nerves returning as we disembark from the chariot. “Hold the act just a little while longer,” I tell him quietly, leaving my head high. “You don’t have to interact, just be above them.”

He seems to steel himself after my words and I guide him towards the elevator. We do not make it before we are once more accosted by Joan, whose district partner has been left behind somewhere to fend for himself. She is practically glowing and it is not just because of her outfit. If I did not know better, I would think she was having the time of her life. 

I suppose I _ don’t _ know better. Joan has had years to deviate from what I expect of her now. 

She immediately grabs my hand when she reaches me and pulls, half forcing me to twirl for her so she can see the way the smoke of my dress lazily spins away from us. “Cinna outdid himself this year. I never would have thought he could outdo Katniss’s dress last year but I think this one suits you,” she assures me. I have no time to answer this, because she immediately turns to Rory. “You’re Rory Hawthorne, aren’t you? You certainly stole the show. The careers looked absolutely _ green _ with envy.”

Her delight and recognition of him seems to throw Rory and I quickly step in to make introductions.

“Rory, this is Joan. Our grandmothers were friends, so we used to play together back when we were kids,” I tell him.

She nudges me with her elbow, seemingly unoffended by the way I may have minimized our connection. “Thick as thieves we were.”

I see our team hanging back at the entrance to the Training Center, with varying reactions to what is occurring. Effie seems to be delighted at the unfolding events and Haymitch certainly doesn’t look displeased. 

Katniss, however, watches us with narrowed eyes that I fear might burn a hole through Joan’s glowing countenance.

She does not notice this, but instead waves over to the District Three tributes. One of them, seeming to know her as well, is exasperated but responds to her summons by approaching us. He looks close to our age, maybe a year or two younger. He wears glasses that seem enormous compared to the rest of his face, making his eyes seem much bigger and interested than the rest of his face would imply. The Capitol costumes look silly on most, but something about his seriousness, the close crop of his black hair, and the ageless quality about him makes the lightbulbs seem more comical than they should.

“Lafferty, this is the one I was telling you about,” Joan exclaims as soon as he is close enough. “Cara Lynnwood. Cara, this is Lafferty Latier, the tribute from District Three.”

I know I say something in greeting but I can see Rory starting to come apart beside me. I catch Peeta’s eye and promise Joan that we will all get to know each other at training the next day. She seems enheartened at my assurance and when our team arrives, she pulls Lafferty away by the elbow. Haymitch nods at her cheery wave.

“Making friends already, are we?” He asks with one raised eyebrow and I resist the urge to scowl. I suddenly feel every bit the teenager I am, uncomfortable in my skin and unsure if I am being accused of anything.

“Having friends will certainly help in the arena,” Cinna says with a quiet smile and it somehow diffuses some of my discomfort. 

Effie says something about needing to finish dinner, so we can get to bed early as tomorrow is going to be a big, big, _big_ day! I tune most of her out but Rory seems to be hanging onto her words. Effie is the only one to speak while Peeta catches us an elevator. When we are ushered in, she goes on about the Capitol’s reception to our costumes and how taken they all are with us. Thankfully, Cinna turns off the effects of Rory's and my costumes, so I don’t have to be worried about setting off some kind of smoke detector before we even make it to our floor. 

Floors apparently coordinate with District numbers here and worry over forgetting my floor is at least one more thing that gets assuaged this evening. Effie’s chatter and Peeta’s periodic interested comment rescues the rest of us from having to participate and I imagine that certainly must have been convenient for Katniss last year. My own district partner is somehow even less verbose than I am and I lack the capability to draw anyone (myself included) out of their shell. 

Effie’s commentary on our costumes and the other district’s costumes and the outfits of the other mentors takes us all the way into our apartment, where the combination of scents and sights hits me, vivid and completely overwhelming. I sway on my feet, take in the lay of the side table with some kind of poupouri and baked goods set out for us. There are two Avoxes standing on the far end of the room, and for a short second, I swear I am nine years old. I am in the Capitol with my grandmother. I am awed by the food and the sights, fearful because of the slight tremble in Addelise’s hands when she raises the fork to her lips.

But I am not nine years old and Addelise Lynnwood has long been dead. It seems I am not the only one, however, to be experiencing some level of shock. Katniss, Peeta, and Rory all seem to be having reactions of their own, though Rory seems confused and Peeta barely betrays it on his face. It is Katniss who is frozen completely.

Haymitch grabs her arm, clearly anticipating some level of reaction. Effie seems torn between her confusion at Katniss’s reaction and how I seem suddenly unwell. 

It looks like Katniss is fixing herself to tear her arm from Haymitch’s grasp. The male, red-headed Avox seems to be somewhat in pain. Peeta is looking back and forth between the two of them like he might intercede. I don’t fully understand what is happening but Rory is starting to look panicked and it is clear that something might soon go wrong. 

So I do the first thing I can think of, given Effie and Cinna’s apparent notice of my condition, and collapse to the ground in my smoke colored dress. 

Immediately, all attention in the room shifts from Katniss and the Avox to me. In my fall, I knock over a bowl of decorative _ something _ from the side table next to me. I am fairly sure no one on our team but Effie buys it, but she and our other Capitol attendants are fully focused on me as they rush to my assistance. Peeta is at one of my elbows and Rory at the other as the help me stand. In the corner of my eye, I see Katniss crouched to help the male Avox clean up what was spilled. For a split second, their fingers clasp. 

I take a shaky breath and assure my captive audience that I simply got lightheaded, that it must just be the excitement of the last couple days. I do not think anyone but myself and Haymitch noticed the interaction that just occurred. Effie continues to fret, but Cinna assures her that I likely just need to eat and perhaps change out of the tight bodice of my dress. Having to adapt a dress from Katniss’s smaller form, perhaps he simply left it too tight and that was why I was short of breath. I feel some small level of guilt for jumping on this and claiming that must be it, because there is no part of me that believes for a second that he would make such a mistake.

In the meantime, Peeta has pulled Katniss away and down the hallway towards their quarters. The Avox has returned to his position and Haymitch grabs my elbow and gives Rory a small push towards the same hallway our other mentors disappeared down. He deposits Rory at his own room to change and clean up for dinner, but stops me at my door.

“Feeling unwell this evening, are we, Princess?” He asks me, voice sarcastic.

“It’s been an overwhelming 48 hours,” I say stiffly. “I suppose I must not have had enough to eat at lunch.”

“Well, you make sure you get enough to eat at dinner,,” he snarks once more, and when I start to open the door to my room he grabs my arm again. “You want to take care here, Princess. It’s not Katniss Everdeen who is going into the arena this time.”

I am far more comfortable when I have the door closed between Haymitch Abernathy and myself. I feel my temper rising again this evening, and marvel at the oddity. I had not experienced many heightened emotions of any kind in recent years - besides perhaps boredom or, more recently, hunger.

What is it that he means? Of _ course _ I know it isn’t Katniss going into the arena this time. I was the one who volunteered. Out of any of us - except, ironically, perhaps Katniss - I am the only one who walked into this with my eyes fully open. And unlike Katniss, I had time to weigh my decision before I chose to commit to it.

It takes me a frustrating minute to wrench myself free of my dress. In an impatient huff (and some small degree of rage), I abandon it on the floor. But I do not make it two steps towards the bathroom before shame overtakes me and I return, carefully draping my gown across the foot of the bed. My mood is not Cinna’s fault and I will not take it out on his artwork.

Standing in the shower, I feel another rush of familiarity that makes me squeeze my eyes closed. My breath gets caught somewhere in the back of my throat and it takes another moment of deep breaths before I can swallow it back down. It is not the shower or the bubbles that smell like flowers. But I have not felt hot water on my skin - besides what I might get in the tanning baths - since before my grandmother’s death. The sensation takes me back, again, to Victor’s Village and I half expect to find a warm towel left out on a chair for me. Instead I settle for the jets of warm air which dry me off and loosen the knots in my hair.

I am not the last to make it to the dinner table when I finally emerge. Rory, Effie, Haymitch, Cinna, and Portia, have all taken their places by the time I find mine - settled between Effie and Rory. 

Effie glances nervously down the hall where I had come. “Should I, er, go see if she’s ready for dinner?” 

I do not miss that she said _ she _. No one thinks it is Peeta who is holding up the two.

Clearly Haymitch doesn’t, because he takes his cup of some Capitol drink and pours a generous shot from his flask into it. He knocks back one mouthful, much to the reproachful look of Effie and the exasperation of our stylists, before he speaks. 

“They’ll get here. Peeta will pull her out better than any of us can.”

“Well, we should still wait for them,” Effie huffs, eyeing Rory (who has just grabbed a roll and taken a generous chunk out of it) as if it was she who his poor table manners was insulting. To Rory’s credit, he did not seem to care one bit if Effie was offended by his manners and I decide that I like him - even if he refuses to take the burden of conversation off my shoulders.

“Well, we can’t wait too long or our princess here might pass clean out this time,” Haymitch counters, raising his glass to me and succeeding to splash some into the salad bowl. I manage not to wrinkle my nose. The combination of strawberry vinaigrette and white liquor likely appeals to no one. 

“Oh, of course,” Effie remembers and squeezes my hand. “You go on right ahead, dear. We all understand.”

I almost feel bad that Effie, Cinna, and Portia have the personal backbone to ignore Haymitch and Rory and wait for the rest of our dinner companions. But I don’t feel bad enough to turn down this excuse, and instead load up my plate with the various delicacies I most remember loving from my first ten years of luxury. The roast beef melts in my mouth and I send up an apology to Sae, wherever she is, for the ungenerous comparisons I make to her soup.

When Katniss and Peeta finally appear, I am halfway through my second helping. Peeta makes their excuses, but Katniss’s attention stays on her plate. She is between Peeta and Cinna, who lays his hand over hers for a moment before he tucks into his own food.

There are all these moments which reiterate to me that I am not truly one of them. It is the way Katniss and Haymitch seem to communicate without words or the obvious connection between Katniss and our stylist. I know that there is a year of memories and the binds of overcoming life and death that tie them all together. But I do not think a decade could pass and give me half the connection to anyone that these people all have with each other.

Portia asks Peeta about his talent and they start to discuss his paintings, which at least finally opens up a conversation I can participate in. It has been years since I last held a brush, but I have held onto my memories of my old lessons the way I held onto the stuffed bear I had when I was little.

Cinna and Portia both are interested and engaged, their own artistic capabilities prodigiously beyond our own. I am certainly the most embarrassingly untalented one at the table. Effie even finds ways to participate in her own way, talking about the artists and musicians which have spent the last year inspired by the ‘Star-Crossed Lovers of District 12’. Cinna and Portia’s patience would be enough to earn my admiration, if they hadn’t gained it already.

Even at Effie’s rather insensitive remarks, Katniss says nothing but continues to push food around on her plate. Periodically, Peeta manages to get her to eat something - passing her the plums from his lamb stew, asking her opinion on something he is eating. But she seems to be in her own world and determined to take in nothing but the color of her table setting.

I wonder if I might like Katniss in a different life. I know there is no chance for friendship in the one we are in now. We are caught up in a knot of her debt to me and our shared intention to see Rory come out as Victor when this is over. She doesn't know me, so I fully believe that she might not understand this. But she knows I volunteered for Prim. Maybe this will tell her enough - either that I cannot live with watching someone so young die for nothing or that there isn’t enough back in District Twelve to interest me in going back.

She is hot tempered and hostile and seems to like no one but Peeta, Cinna, her sister, and perhaps Rory. I allow that she also likely likes Gale, since I know they hunt together and he seems protective enough of her. 

But I acknowledge this is all that I know about her and I am no more familiar with the kind of person I would be friends with than sure of who I would not.

Before dinner is over, Katniss stands up to leave and Peeta follows - making excuses for them both. When Rory and I are finished eating, Cinna suggests that we watch the recaps of the evening. We agree, aside from Haymitch who seems more interested in his cup than us and quickly abandons our company in favor of his room.

The perceptions of the Capitol are certainly generous towards us, though Claudius Templesmith’s commentary of me is far more critical. The citizens seem to be interested in Rory and several of those interviewed on the street draw comparisons to his apparent chivalry to that of Peeta in the previous games. One young girl with misty eyes and suggests that maybe he might fall in love with one of the other younger tributes, but she tears up with the newscaster reminds her that there will be no exceptions to the rule this year. At this, Rory stands up and goes to bed. Effie makes her excuses soon after.

I make it a little while longer. I stay up long enough to hear Claudius’s short diatribe at my uncreative grab at glory - volunteering for Primrose Everdeen is apparently _very_ overdone at this point. He makes a comment at how, after a Girl on Fire, he wonders if a smoking girl will be enough to capture anyone’s attention. His dismissal is contradicted, of course, by the footage of the Capitol where street vendors are somehow already selling glowing tiaras and little ‘smoke bombs’ to drop around you. Two sisters, one clearly boasting Katniss’s braid and the other a blond wig, are talking eagerly about us two. They were devoted fans of Katniss and Primrose, and had been so afraid that Primrose might die in the arena. The younger one is grateful she can still use her blond wig and can’t wait to see Katniss guide me to victory. The interviewer tries to redirect them to other hopeful tributes, but moves away quickly when their focus cannot be shifted.

Cinna is frowning when Claudius makes another comment about my fragile emotional state. “Claudius Templesmith has a script. That’s not what the rest of Panem thinks.”

Portia nods. “They had plans for these Games and you weren’t part of them.”

I smile and untuck my feet from where I am curled on the couch. “I don’t mind,” I assure them. “There are some people whose dislike is a compliment.”

With that I wish them good night and disappear down the hall, ready to fall into the softest bed that I have had in years. And maybe that is why it takes me so long to fall asleep.


	7. I was left to my own devices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleep is hard to come by and Cara decides to be more prepared. Cara and Haymitch have a conversation about many things, set to a musical backdrop.

When I wake again, my recollection of my dream is foggier than it was on the train. I do not think any major points of changed. My skin still feels raw and crawling and I still hear a man’s voice calling me a liar. I’m not sure, but I think it might have been Rory.

But like last night, my dreams leave me feeling anxious and jittery. My heart is racing too fast for me to stand still, so I am at the door to my room before I have time to think about my actions. For a second, I am afraid I have been locked in. But what would be the point? I am neither a threat nor an inspiration. Just an unwanted house guest who invited herself.

The knob turns and I find myself in the hall with nowhere to go. This is not the train, where I could pick one of two directions and it is a building unfamiliar to me. I know I heard Peeta say something about the roof, but suddenly the idea of being alone out there frightens me. It is an odd sensation, as I have been so uncomfortable and anxious surrounded by so many people. Some part of me that feels more by instinct than reason fears that if I step out somewhere alone, than I will be locked out and not allowed to return. They will make me go back go Twelve and my shed and the place where the most company I have had in years has been a pack of stray dogs.

Wishing to stay goes against all self-preservation, but that part of me mired in instinct thinks the unknown dangers are preferable to the ones I have faced so far. At least this arena is new to me.

Since I appear to have abandoned every other pretense of reason, I decide that I should at least try to make up for my apparent lack of attention the last couple days. It isn’t difficult to find my way back to the room where we watched the ceremonies recap, but once there I realize I don’t know what I’m doing. I haven’t spent much time around televisions in a very long time and even my mandatory viewing has been minimal. My access at home was limited and I did not always want to make my way to the square. Had mandatory viewing been more enforced, I would have been jailed a long time ago.

An attendant apparently takes pity on me while I stand confused. He finds me, unsure of what I am supposed to be doing, and even brings the videos up when I ask. I am settling into the couch when he returns with a steaming cup of hot chocolate. Confused but not wanting to offend him, I just tell him thank you and he wordlessly disappears from the room.

The recap of the Reaping starts with District One. As I thought, Satin and Paris are cousins. Paris, 15, is the youngest brother of Augustus Braun. Satin, 16, is his cousin. Both are brawny and beautiful. When their names are drawn, Braun raises a fist in the air, but, even though the video quality is poor, I think I see that fist shaking. 

District Two has two volunteers, which should not be surprising, except that the commentator makes sure to explain to the audience that the boy tribute, Slate has two notable relatives. His uncle was the Victor of the 60th games - a particularly bloody year, he delightedly informs us. But more recent to our memories, his cousin is none other than Cato. The District Two tribute from last year’s games. Suddenly I understand the hatred in Slate’s eyes when he looked at me. I am sure he will satisfy himself with slaughtering two tributes from Twelve, but I am sure he had been anticipating Primrose particularly. I am the one who stole that from him and I am sure he will not leave it unpunished.

District Three’s clip is shorter with far less interest from our earnest commentator. The first tribute is only twelve and, like me, is the granddaughter of a deceased victor. Lafferty, the nephew of Beetee Latier, comes across as much more composed after the tears of their first tribute. But this might be because he is simply a composed person and, as the only possible male tribute, he certainly had time to emotionally prepare. 

When District Four comes on screen, they spend a particular amount of time focusing on Finnick Oddair. He oversees the proceedings on stage and looks bored. He has no relatives in this years reapings, but even he looks affected when the 14 year grand-niece of Mags is brought to the stage. A 12 year old boy’s name is drawn, but Kol Cresta volunteers. He certainly looks more the role of District Four’s careers. He is tall and made from solid muscle. But his eyes look too kind to be part of the Games. I do not want to underestimate him, however. Even the kindest people can be turned into killers by the games.

If there is commentary on District Five, I do not hear it. There are four possible tributes from District Five, but Joan is the only girl. She stands with perfect posture and her hands clasped behind her back, just as she used to when we were kids. I can see it so perfectly in my minds eye. That was how she stood when she and her grandmother would meet us at the train station. Back then she wore her hair in two braids, but it is still the same auburn color it was then.

I missed the calling of the boy. I can tell you nothing about him. I do not want Joan to die. I’m sure I don’t want his death either.

District Six and Seven go by and I can admit I pay about the same level of attention to them as I did the first time Effie played the Reapings for us. I sip my hot chocolate and think about Joan’s old braids, Slate’s probable plans for my death, and all of the grandmothers which must be screaming at the gates of hell since our names were drawn. Somewhere out there I know Addelise is leading the charge.

I rouse myself back to attention when District Eight begins to play. They seem to want to move quickly through them too, but what catches my attention are the things they are clearly trying hard to not show. Periodically, I catch sight of a wall singed by something. One view of the square in front of the Justice Building seems off balance, as if there had been a building on one side that is there no longer. The people look tired and angry, but the crowd is strangely clean - as if they had been prepped for this taping like I have been. 

The female tribute is only 12 and for a split second I can see two screaming kids in the arms of a young woman who looks close to tears herself. I am guessing the Capitol wants to humanize them as little as possible, so little attention is paid. The boy tribute is 18 with angry eyes and hands almost as callous as mine. The girl, Lyssa, looks even more diminutive on stage with him and the commentary moves quickly onto District Nine. 

I should be paying more attention again, I know. But District Nine has only three possible tributes. A 17 year old girl volunteers for a 13 year old kid and a 14 year old boy walks to the stage with his shoulders hunched and his head bowed. I am sure he knows about making a good impression, but I doubt he thinks he has a chance either way. 

Ten has only two possible tributes. Twins. 15 years old. They defiantly hold hands once they are both on stage and they do not smile. 

District 11 has a surprising number of possible tributes, when you consider the number of Victors they have had. But looking at them I realize most of them must be cousins or siblings. With only a few exceptions, they all look so similar. Both times, young kids are called. Both times, someone volunteers. The girl, Maize, is 17. Rye is 18. They are cousins share an uncle - a victor named Chaff that I think I’ve seen alongside Haymitch during Capitol footage. 

I almost forget that Twelve is next and, by extension, me. Some of the other clips have been short, but the editing on twelve is so cut down it comes across as almost clumsy. Primrose’s name is drawn and I volunteer. The moment of confusion, my second statement, and my solo trip to the stage is all cut. It picks up as the Peacekeepers give me one forceful shove. There is a quick shot of my name and then Effie is drawing Rory’s name. The editor did not even wait for Rory to be fully facing the stage.

When it finishes, the screen changes to what is currently playing on Capitol television. It is a musical based on last year’s games. Effie is singing a heartfelt ballad to Haymitch, asking him to stop drinking. Meanwhile, Peeta is also singing to Katniss, pleading her not to go to the feast.

“Turn off this trill, would you?” Grumbles a voice behind me and somehow I do not jump. 

Turning to face Haymitch, who stands behind the couch, I smile sweetly at him and the drink he has in his hand. “But Haymitch, you should listen. You’ll never drink enough to drown your own heart.”

He scowls at the dreadful line and sits on the far end of the couch. He tosses back half of his drink and then pulls out a flash he uses to top it off. “Finally decided to pay attention to what’s going on, have you?”

Apparently he has been here longer than I thought, which is not promising for my instincts in the arena. I don’t try to tell myself that I’m tired as I’m sure I will be far more exhausted once there.

“Wanted to get to know my classmates before the first day of school,” I say, bringing back my sweetness.

“Looked to me like you’ve already met a few.” He raises his glass to me but his eyebrow is raised and I suppose he is expecting some kind of an answer.

“Joan and I used to play together when we were kids in the Capitol. Guess our grandmothers thought we were better off entertaining each other than paying attention to the Games.”

“What was Addelise doing bringing you here for them anyways?” He snorts. 

He knew her once, I know. I don’t know how well, but she was his mentor. Surely there was some knowledge of who she was as a person. But maybe he didn’t know what she was like after my mother died.

“She didn’t like leaving me alone after my parents’ accidents,” I explain. 

I can see his eyes and I know he understands what I’m saying. I take it as my chance to ask a question of my own.

“Did we ever meet?” I wonder. “Back when we were neighbors?”

He shrugs. “A couple times. By the time you came along, I was too deep in drink and she was too deep in childrearing for us to be close friends. We weren’t exactly ‘dinner party’ material. She had a nightmare when you were about four. She was screaming about fire and you came running to my house for help. Not sure how long you were knocking. If I’d taken any longer to get to the door, you’d have found a way to break in. I walked you back and explained it was just a nightmare and then you both knew well enough to leave me alone.”

“And the second time?” I ask curiously, trying to make sense of this man. I cannot picture this prickly, antagonistic drunk walking a little girl home, but maybe it explains a little more why Katniss and Peeta seem to trust him so much.

He takes another long drink, this time from the flask, and he is taking so long to answer me I wonder if he plans to at all. But when he does, it is not what I was expecting. I don’t know if there is anything I _was_ expecting, but this would not be it.  
“The night you found your grandmother’s body, you showed up at my door. You were manic and screaming, so it doesn’t surprise me that you don’t remember. I slept on the couch that night. My place wasn’t exactly safe for children.”

My head is spinning almost as much as it was last night. My memories of the days after Addelise’s death have always been hazy and unclear but I don’t know how I could forget this. Or at least how I could not even have an inkling when I met Haymitch again.

His voice is gruff and a little slurred when he speaks again. “I didn’t know what the tanners were like when - they just took you after the funeral. I didn’t know. Figured you were gonna be fine in town. It’s no … Victor’s Village … but town kids eat, you know?”

I can hear so many things layered in his voice, most of which I didn’t have any idea was there. I don’t like the emotion it suggests is there; the guilt that isn’t his to carry and I don’t want to face. I’m torn between thinking I should take that drink away from him and wanting him to down a few more of those flasks so he’ll pass out and I won’t have to think about it. Maybe he could pass me the flask and I can knock myself out, just forget we had this conversation. I imagine it would be a lot quicker than waiting for him to drink himself into oblivion.

I don’t know how to comfort him and I really doubt he wants any comfort I could give him. Instead he drinks and I watch Katniss and Thresh of all people singing a duet. It is about Rue and Clove’s actress is lying on the ground between them; dead I guess, but she is splayed out on her back and I’m pretty sure I can see her breathing. It pulls a giggle from me, which I think must be entirely inappropriate, but Haymitch starts guffawing next to me. In seconds we’re both laughing hysterically and he has spilled half his drink onto the god-awful carpeting. The room reeks of alcohol now, but this only seems to make it funnier for some reason. 

Haymitch has had to set his drink down and I am gasping for breath when Cato leaps on screen to interrupt Katniss and Thresh’s duet. It should be comical as well, the height at which he managed to jump into the scene and the way everyone seems to be both avoiding and almost tripping over Clove’s still-breathing dead body. But all I can think about is that boy from District Two, Slate, and the way he looked at me last night. The thought strangles my last laugh in my throat and I almost choke.

I can’t even blame him really. He is angry at all the wrong people, but grief is not known to create reasonable people - case in point: myself.

Haymitch’s laughing stopped at some point, I don’t know when.

“Figured out you’ve got enemies as well as friends, now?”

I nod. “I guess it really is a good thing I volunteered then. I worried maybe I messed something up, but I wouldn’t want to see Primrose and Slate in the same arena.

He looks at me oddly and I think this is the third time in as many days that people have looked at me like I’m a problem they can’t quite work out. I haven’t had any luck with it myself, so maybe one of them will finally get it and be able to clue me in too.

“You’re the one going into the arena, Princess,” he frowns. “Not Katniss. Not Primrose.”

“I know,” I frown back. This is the second time he has said something like this and I can’t figure out why. “I don’t think I could possibly forget that.”

“Well, you need to start acting like it,” he growls. “In a different year, I’d look at you and think I might have a Victor.”

“But it’s not another year!” I snap back. “I know that you all are planning on bringing Rory back. It’s what I want too, so there’s no point in us pretending like there is anything here that’s different.”

His expression is frozen, like he said something he wishes he could take back. I guess you’re not supposed to tell your tributes outright that you’re rooting for them to die. But the hand that isn’t holding his drink is clenched in a fist and the dim light coming in through the window is just enough for me to tell it is trembling. “You’re not in the arena yet, princess,” he finally says. “Don’t make bets on how things are going to go. You are not gonna understand the games until they’re over.”

It looks like there is more he wants to say, but instead he clenches his jaw and resolutely focuses back on the TV, where Peeta is singing to an unconscious Katniss about love and baking. Since I am willing to bet there are about a dozen things he’d rather be doing, including having Katniss pull out all of his fingernails individually, I’m guessing this means our conversation is over.

The sky is just starting to turn a lighter shade of blue outside the window, but the Capitol doesn’t strike me as early risers. I leave Haymitch to his movie, thinking I might get a couple more hours of sleep before training. When I fall into my bed, I almost immediately start to drift off but I am left half awake and half in a dream. Gale or Rory or some strange man from the seam is in it once again, but this time they aren’t calling me a liar. They are telling me that I am wrong about whatever I think I know and become increasingly frustrated when I can’t seem to get what they mean.

When Effie knocks on my door to start my big, big, big day, I think I am more tired then before I fell asleep.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had fun with this chapter and kind of stepping into Haymitch’s head for a little bit. He is one of the most interesting characters to me and I’ve actually been writing some one-shots from his perspective, just to help me understand what is happening outside of Cara’s bubble. I might end up posting them soon.  
I also want to shout out FernWithy’s End of the World Series, which stand as my favorite Hunger Games fics full stop. Y’all should definitely check it out if you haven’t already. They are incredible. But I was inspired by the Katniss/Peeta musical in The Golden Mean and couldn’t resist setting this chapter to a musical background.


	8. Lighting matches just to swallow up the flame like me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cara and Rory make it to training. She realizes she has made a great many mistakes, the Careers know something they shouldn’t, and Cara is definitely not Katniss Everdeen.

I go through the motions of showering and putting on the clothes laid out for me - form fitting black paints and a gray long sleeved shirt. With no idea what to do with my hair, I throw it into a ponytail. It is too long and there is too much of it. It is impressive in opening ceremonies, but once I’m in the arena I can only picture how matted it is going to be. Worse yet, how easily an opponent will be able to take hold of it. The urge to cut it off is almost unmanageable.

I don’t have scissors at hand, which is probably for the best. I know the image that is being played out for me. Maybe when the interviews are over, I can persuade Cinna to have Flavius get rid of it for me. 

I leave my room to go to breakfast, but I’m doubtful if I can eat with the way nerves have set up shop in my stomach. This time I am the last one to make it to the table. Haymitch looks surly and I doubt he has put down his flask since the last time I saw him. Katniss and Peeta are talking about something with their heads bowed together. Portia and Cinna are talking with Rory about something.Effie is going over the schedule, but I’m not sure anyone is listening. 

I taket the only seat left between Cinna and Effie and catch Cinna looking at me when I reach for a scone I can pick at halfheartedly. 

“Heard you and Haymitch watching a movie this morning,” he says softly and I flinch like he had raised his hand to strike me. I don’t know why it bothers me so much. I suppose because it means that anyone else might have, but it disturbs me more that Cinna might think poorly of me for it. 

I throw around looking for words, trying to think of something to say. It isn’t fair to Cinna that he has done so much to help me when we all know I’m sending myself to my death. I can’t help but feel ashamed, like it is a weakness that I don’t even plan on trying. I know I’m doing the right thing, but that doesn’t make any of this okay.

This time it is Peeta who rescues me. 

“So we’ve been talking about your strategy for training,” he begins almost conversationally. By we I assume he means himself because I doubt Katniss has thought about anything to help me and I don’t think Haymitch has spent a lot of time feeling chatty since the last time I saw him. We all give Peeta the benefit of pretending to believe his lie and he goes on. “You’re starting at a solid place after last night, and everyone is going to be looking at you after last year’s games.”

“We want you to be impressive,” Haymitch breaks in and apparently I was wrong. “Don’t show all your cards, you don’t need more of a target on your back than Katniss and Peeta already gave you, but make it clear you’re potential allies.”

“How?” Rory asks dubiously.

“You’re good with snares,” Peeta says generously. “Start with that. Stick to the complex ones, the ones that can catch a person up in them. You can work on archery if you need to.”

“And spend some time with the edible plants and insects people,” Haymitch adds. “It’s not glamorous, but your odds of winning are better if you don’t starve to death.”

It’s blunt, but not bad advice. I only survived the first year by myself because of Addelise’s lessons. Maybe Tobiah wouldn’t have allowed me to entirely waste away, but I’m doubtful.

“Got an idea of how you’ll spend your morning?” Cinna asks and I nod slowly.

“There are some things I could stand to brush up on. Might join Rory at the snares for awhile.”

I can knock a bird out of the sky with a knife. But it isn’t the most effective manner of hunting. I’ve always relied more upon snares and traps, but those things aren’t going to do much more than feed me in the arena. 

For awhile, I had managed to get by with a makeshift bow. I’d imitated the bows I’d seen others (that being Katniss and Gale admittedly) carry in the woods, and after several years of effort, I’d managed to get a passable one into my hands. But the quality had been iffy at best and I’d always felt more comfortable with my knives. Perhaps this would not be a bad time to see how I could do with a bow of actual quality in my hands.

Effie looks at her watch and clucks. “Best to be there early. We wouldn’t want to be late after the good impression we’ve created.”

I cannot think of a single part of me that cares about making sure I am respectful of the Capitol’s schedule, but Rory looks so nervous he might be sick and it’s important to Effie. So I smile at her and nod, saying I’m ready to go. Rory freezes in his seat for a moment, but I don’t think it is going to help him to sit and stew in his anxiety any longer.

We allow Effie to shepherd us up from the table and towards the elevator. Our mentors follow us and I wonder if they plan on imparting any final words of wisdom, but they say nothing as Effie calls for the elevator.

“Cara.”

Just as the door opens, Katniss finally speaks and it isn’t to Rory. At first, I don’t realize she really meant me, since I think this is one of the only times she voluntarily said something to me without prompting.

I turn to look back at her, probably failing to mask my surprise. But she is flushed and wearing a look of consternation, like she regrets saying anything. The seconds stretch and I’m guessing she is tossing around for something acceptable to say. Nothing comes to her mind or mine.

“Be careful,” is what she finally says and I nod. To call what I wear a smile would be a stretch, but now two of my mentors have surprised me this morning. I remember my dream, the one where someone was telling me I don’t understand what is really going on here. Apparently, to some extent my dream was right.

No one else says anything before Effie brushes Rory and I into the elevator. Rory appears to be stealing himself and at least looks a little less sickly than he was a few minutes ago. By the time we make it the training center, he has settled behind a mask of cold gray eyes with a slight downturn of his mouth.

It strikes me that he looks eerily like his brother here, looks older, and I wonder if he is trying to seek strength by imitating Gale. If he is, it’s working. He seems more like the fearsome young man he appeared to be last night than the nervous kid I had breakfast with this morning.

We are still somehow the last people down this morning, despite being ten minutes early. I suspect Effie is horrified, but she covers for it well and leaves as the instructor jumps right into an explanation of the various stations. It sounds like she has given it a thousand times before.

As she speaks, my stomach roils with nausea. I am remembering countless evenings in the dark attic with Addelise. She was following a script much like this one. Teaching me stealth, weapons, snares, food, and survival skills. When I was older, I understood that she was preparing me for the Games. But I now realize that she was directly imitating what I am hearing now. This was no soft preparation - just in case the worst happened. She must have been certain I would end up here. Must have understood I would recognize what I was hearing.

There is a soft whisper in the back of my head, one that sounds like her voice, telling me that I’ve been training for this for years. I’m ready.

I see Slate from across the room, who is not listening to the instructor but instead greedily eyeing the spears. I’m not the only one.

I look to where Rory is standing at my left. I have to look up, almost craning my neck. I forget sometimes how tall he is when he seems so young to me. 

“Snares?” I say and he nods. 

When we’re at the station, the instructor takes a moment to assess our skill level and he seems inordinately pleased when he realizes we are more than proficient. He shows us a snare which can catch someone by the ankle and leave them hanging several feet in the air. 

He lets us work on it on our own and after a couple minutes I am once more knocked aside by a sense of familiarity. My fingers know this knot. I’ve seen it before on a smaller, simpler scale. I saw it one night several years ago, where it left a stray dog hanging in the woods - the night I met Rory’s brother.

Rory sees my fingers stutter and a flush enter my cheeks.

“Are you okay?” He asks quietly and I wonder if I’m ever going to stop being overwhelmed by connections here. I’ve felt more in the last 48 hours than I have in years and I feel entirely unprepared for it.

I want to tell Rory something about how I’m fine, just forgot a step, but we are distracted by raucous giggling coming from over by the weapons. Paris, Satin, Slate, and the other District Two girl are all giggling over something. Satin’s eyes catch mine and they glint with both malice and humor. 

Seeing we’re watching, she dramatically swoons into Paris’s arms. The effect is rather ruined by the snort she makes as she falls, but my blood runs ice cold. I don’t mistake her meaning. I don’t know how she knows, but she does. And I do not think it is my cynicism that says if she knows, so will the rest of the tributes - assuming they don’t already.

I’m sure my face is paper white. How much have I ruined? I was going to look out for Rory in the arena. But if he is with me, who would take him as an ally? I can hear Claudius Templesmith’s commentary without even needing to watch it. I’m sure I’m as good as dead in the arena - at least sooner than I thought I would be.

I want to stand up and go to the knives, maybe throw one at the heads of the dummies since I’m not supposed to throw them at the careers yet. But I remember Haymitch and Peeta’s advice and right now my only advantage is that none of these people understand I could kill them from the other side of the room.

My heart is lodged in my throat and I’m furious. Unfortunately, I know I lean towards angry tears and the last thing I can afford to do right now is cry. But I need to move and I need to do something constructive, before I seem like more of a simpering princess to them than I already do.

All at once, I understand what Haymitch has been saying. _ I _ am going into the arena. Not Katniss, not Primrose. And I have been playing the wrong game.

“I’m going to go try archery for awhile,” I tell Rory and he nods.

His imitation of Gale is still in place, but I can read the concern in his eyes. “Want me to join you?”

All this does is increase the stinging in my chest. Rory Hawthorne is a good kid. He has terrible table manners, his first instinct in the Capitol was to smile at people, and his conversational skills sadly rival mine. He absolutely should not be here. Even at a literal level, he is the only one here not truly related to a Victor. He is here because of the unfortunate chance that his brother was closer to Katniss than could be easily explained. How is he not angry? How does he not hate us?

It makes me hate the Capitol all the more. It makes me hate Slate, who was ready to punish a young girl for what the Capitol had forced to happen. It makes me hate myself for every misstep I’ve made since the Capitol announced the Quarter Quell.

But none of this is helpful and Rory needs the chance to make allies apart from me. “No, I’ve got it,” I tell him smiling. “You practice stringing up the careers for me, yeah?”

He gives me a hollow grin that is just a little dopey. “I can do that.”

When I pick up the bow at the archery range, the instructor looks ecstatic. I’m sure she is expecting another Katniss and I am equally sure she will be disappointed. The bow in my hand is weighted weird - or rather, I am used to a bow so poorly constructed I have no idea how a proper one feels.

I take a couple minutes to accustom myself to how the bow and the arrows feel in my hands. I take a moment to practice pulling an arrow back without firing. She looks crestfallen even before I make the shot. It hits the target - even hits only two rings out from the center. But it is quite clear that I am no Katniss Everdeen.

To her credit, she does not give up on me and instead helps adjust my stance and hold on the bow. It takes about half an hour, but with time I am solidly hitting the center of the target; or at least I am most of the time. I lose myself in the shooting, allowing my focus to pull me out of the noise of the training center and back into the woods. I breathe in, then exhale and I can see the evening settling in. The dogs are nearby and the target is a buck that I will shoot down. If I don’t make a perfect shot, the dogs will finish the job for me but the butcher always pays more for a whole animal.

In. Then exhale. I make the shot and it splits my last arrow.

The instructor seems to have gained hope, but the next two shots barely scrape the second ring and I’m willing to bet my knives that we agree it is beginner’s luck. But I’ve managed to avoid thinking about swooning theatrics or dead children, so I stay at the station until they call for lunch.


	9. Doesn’t matter if it’s not our day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day of training continues on, the District Twelve tributes spend time with possible allies, and Cara is as confused as usual.

When they call for lunch, I haven’t decided my play. Rory appears at my elbow almost immediately and I suspect he hasn’t strayed too far since I left him tying snares. I eye him skeptically. 

“You need to focus on making allies right now,” I say, feeling stupid and unnecessary. Like he doesn’t already know this? But he is still staying by my side and I don’t know how else to hint that he break off to go make friends with the other tributes. _ I’m _ hardly the person to give advice on that. Thank God for Peeta; between Katniss, Haymitch, and myself, Rory would have no example of the socially well adjusted.

But despite all this, he eyes me skeptically in return. “You’re joking, right?”

Really, if there was any justice in this world, at least one tribute from Twelve would know how to communicate, but neither of us seem to be able to scrounge for words as we follow the departing mob for where lunch is being served.

But I think I get an inkling of what Rory meant when we arrive, because Joan is eagerly directing Lafferty to help her push two tables together. I manage to half turn towards Rory to clarify that Lafferty Latier is probably a really cool guy but _ not _the kind of guy who is going to keep him alive - he would be better off trying to make friends with that District Four boy or maybe even the District Seven pair. 

But before I can even open my mouth, Kol Cresta comes up beside Joan and slaps a hand down on her shoulder, before going to take the chair opposite her. The girl from his district - I cast around for her name and come up dry - hovers behind him for a second before nervously pulling out the chair beside him. 

There isn’t any more time to second guess the situation, because Joan has spotted us and is waving us both over. If anyone had any doubt of the forming alliance, she has cleared it away by shouting both my name and Rory’s. But even Lafferty is smiling at us (albeit a little oddly) and Kol’s hand is raised in something like a greeting. Rory’s feet move before mine, and we join the others at the makeshift wide table once we have collected our plates. 

In total, there are seven of us - making us the largest group present, even outnumbering the careers. I end up between Kol and Rory, across from Lafferty. His district companion is beside him and just as silent as Kol’s. 

“Cara, you’ve met Lafferty. Do you remember Kol?”

“From the reapings?” I ask frowning and Kol grins like I cracked a joke.

“My granddad was a victor too,” he says, with too much of a smile for the context. “I crashed your play dates a couple times. I used to pull your pigtails.”

I don’t remember this, but looking past him I can see the careers watching us with narrowed eyes. Slate especially seems angry at the current events, but I’m not sure how I differentiate that from the normal way he looks at me. Four often joins the careers, I remember. Looking at Kol, anyone can see he would make a strong ally. But I’m guessing he is not going to leave his district partner - Penelope, I now remember - and I doubt Satin is much the sisterly type. 

I play to our audience and roll my eyes and elbow him. “Oh, now I remember. Or at least my scalp does.” 

Teasingly, he pulls at my ponytail and Rory and Joan both laugh. 

“Yup, definitely remember,” I grumble, but I crack a smile; it’s almost even real, especially when Lafferty’s district partner giggles. She’s smaller even than Primrose and I think it’s the first sound I’ve heard her make. 

“I don’t think we’ve met,” I smile at her cautiously. “I’m Cara.”

“Cassidy,” she says quietly. “But my friends call me Dee.”

“Nice to meet you, Dee,” Kol says, sharing his mischievous warmth and I think Kol must either be a genuinely good guy or an absolute monster. 

“So, Cara, you promised me the catch up last night,” Joan smiles. “What have you been up to for the last eight years?”

I pick up a roll and start picking at it to give my hands something to do. “Can’t say I’ve got much exciting stuff to report on. My dad’s family turned out to be tanners, so mostly a whole lot of working with my hands.”

The eyes of the table flick to my hands and I remember one of Templesmith’s derisive comments about my disfigurement. To solidify my good opinion of Dee even further, she doesn’t bat an eye. 

“My brother told me he saw her around town a few times,” Rory says confidently and I wonder whether he or Gale is the liar. “Said she was good at a lot more than just tanning leather. He once saw her carrying a whole deer into the h- into town” he catches himself. I’m sure he has just remembered that hunting is illegal, even if it is Twelve’s worst kept secret. The hob has been gone for months, but there is still a district loyalty that keeps their secret. “Didn’t have help or anything.”

When Joan looks at me, she raises an eyebrow and I know she isn’t thinking about hunting or how much I can deadlift. “So you and Rory’s brother see each other around town, huh?”

“I have spoken to Gale Hawthorne a grand total of twice,” I tell her blankly. “I didn’t even know his name before Reaping Day.”

Rory frowned. “Really? I thought he said something about seeing you after he said goodbye to me.”

Wherever Gale Hawthorne is out there, _damn him_. 

“He did,” I tell him, ignoring the look Kol and Joan are exchanging. “Which was the second time we ever spoke. I think it was mostly for Katniss and Primrose-”

“Prim,” he corrects me, “everyone calls her Prim.”

“Prim,” I amend and the name twists in my mouth. It tastes too much like something that isn’t mine, like the realization that Primrose - Prim - is a person with a complex life and thoughts. “But it wasn’t overly personal or anything. He might have just felt bad that there wasn’t anyone else to see me off.”

“What about the tanners?” Dee asked in confusion, showing her age in her ignorance at what everyone else at the table seems to understand. 

“Reaping Day is busy and there were other kids to worry about.” I only partially lie, casually waving her question away. “The point is, Rory’s brother and I are practically strangers. I had the social life of an agoraphobic rock. For all I know, Rory was the man about town.”

Rory flushes and protests. I’m not sure if he gathered that I was kidding or not, but either way this leads to Joan and Kol turning their teasing onto him - even Dee manages to join in for one light jab of her own. The table is laughing, even Penelope (or Penn, as she tells us to call her) and I join in because we still have the attention of most of the room and I need to make it seem like Rory and I are unquestionably desirable company. 

The only one who seems to understand is Lafferty. Or maybe I misunderstand the seriousness of his expression and that is simply the face he always makes. But either way, I feel somewhat better that he is there and confirming that we are not just a bunch childhood buddies catching up and laughing about old times. 

When lunch ends, Kol and Penn try to cajole Rory and I into joining them at the fishing station - they offer to show us various knots and how to make hooks out of different materials. I’m no District Four, but I’ve got a pretty good grasp on fishing so I beg off to give Rory the chance to solidify his own alliances. 

Both Joan and Lafferty try to convince me to join them, but I manage to slip away from the both of them. I would have been fine with Lafferty, but Joan seems eager to revive a friendship that died a long time ago and, if I have my way, will see both of us dead before it has the chance for a comeback. I’d rather leave the Joan of my childhood in the past, without having to open myself to the conflicted interest of caring about the Joan of now.

Instead of finding myself back at the archery station, I set up camp at the station for edible plants and insects. It doesn’t require much thought and the instructor seems to accept that I know what I’m doing and mostly leaves me to my own thoughts while I practice identifying what would kill me or not.

I do wonder if maybe this is some strategy of Joan’s. The Joan I remember is too smart not to understand the position we are in and I don’t understand this alliance she seems to be trying to form. Kol, I understand. He would be useful until the point where they have to turn on each other. But why Lafferty? And how do they even know each other? True or not, at least Kol had a story about being childhood playmates. 

I am sure Lafferty is smart. If he weren’t a tribute, I could see him being one of those District Three brains the Capitol calls on for everything; kind of like his uncle. But I’m not sure how much good that kind of intelligence is going to be in the arena. It isn’t going to get you a meal or an edge in a fight. Maybe he would know how to get clean water, but there is a whole station dedicated to that for anyone who really needs to figure that out.

And me? That I understand least of all. Keeping your friends close seems to be a sure way to die in the arena. Conflict of interest will put you on the wrong end of someone’s knife, whether theirs or an enemy’s. 

Beyond that, what is she doing with Rory? My teeth are gritted when I look over at where Rory is watching Kol twist various items into fish hooks. To my chagrin, they have been joined by Joan and Lafferty. I smother the urge to go and pull Rory out of there.

Something doesn’t feel right. Something isn’t adding up. It feels like I’m playing a different game than Joan, which is nothing like how it was when we were kids when she always followed after my example.

But even so, I can’t bring myself to believe Joan is going to hurt Rory. Maybe it is my own bias and evidence that keeping my distance is the right choice. But uneasy or not, I cannot picture her hurting him. Regardless, I can’t keep Rory safe if I don’t know what game it is we’re playing and this time it won’t only be pulled pigtails to worry about. 

Quiet footsteps come from my left and I look up to see the District Eight girl hovering a few feet away from me. She looks uncertain, biting her lip and glancing from my face to the screen I’m using to practice. She is not the only kid here, but she looks like she could have been plucked straight out of the Seam with her dark olive skin and wiry black hair. Maybe it is the familiarity of those features that makes her seem more human and _ young _to me, but I smile at her. 

“Can I watch?” She asks in a quiet voice and I wave her over. The instructor starts to approach, but she pauses when Lyssa doesn’t seem to be paying her any attention.

“Cara,” I introduce myself, swiping the screen up to clear it. 

She seems to take heart at my friendly reception and she smiles. “I’m Lyssa,” she says, adjusting her position on her knees to watch over my shoulder. 

“It looks like you know this stuff pretty well,” she admits in a shaky voice. “We don’t have much of any plants around Eight. I really hope the arena isn’t anything like last year’s. I don’t want to end up like Finch.”

She is trembling and clearly nervous, but she certainly isn’t shy and I have no idea why she decided to come to me and not the instructor. But I’m not going to turn away a scared kid, even one that confuses me.

“That’s one thing you don’t need to worry about,” I reassure her, tapping her hand and then the night lock berries on the screen - marking them as poisonous. “First, because these berries are definitely not going to be in the arena. They’re too recognizable now.” I tap her hand again and point her to another toxin, leading her to bring up its information. “Second, you’re going to know not to eat anything you can’t identify _ personally _, even if it seems like someone else has.”

I point out some common traits between the two, how to identify them as clues in other plants. She is nodding along and listening to me seriously, and I find myself echoing the script my grandmother once used. We go along like this for most of an hour before she starts looking less nervous and more hopeful. The test is still on the easiest setting, but she is getting them all right and even remembering the features I told her to look out for. 

“Plus, you’re going to know what you’re looking for by the time we get there,” I smile and she glows right back.

I’m grateful when a moment later the end of training is announced. Her smile makes me feel sick and stupid. I should have ignored her, left her to the care of the instructor. I wasn’t helping anybody by spending the afternoon with her, by helping her - least of all Rory or myself. If she is offended by the way I promptly rush off, I don’t look back to check. 

Rory is waiting for me by the elevator and he looks much better than he did this morning. Hopeful might be too strong a word for it, but he seems more alive than he has looked in the brief time I’ve known him. I don’t know whether it is the promise of allies or that training has reassured him he is more capable than he thinks. I’m happy to see it either way, but I hope he doesn’t build up his confidence in his allies too much. Allies aren’t forever.

This is reiterated by one such ally who is waiting outside the elevator, tapping his foot impatiently and seeming to be in more sour a temper than usual.

“So thought you’d play Katniss this morning, huh, princess?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it was a busy week for me, so there was a bit of a gap between updates. I’m registering for classes for my first semester of grad school soon and I’ve started packing things up at my parents’ house. But I did get a lot more writing done this weekend so you can expect several updates this week! I tend to write short chapters, but several at once so I don’t like to space them out too much. 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading. Kudos, comments, and brutal critiques are the way to my heart.


	10. But you put all these things back to bed when you kick off your shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haymitch is not the only one to have noticed Cara's performance at the archery station. Cara Lynnwood definitely does not understand Katniss Everdeen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So update: It has been a couple weeks since I updated, which is unusual for me. I wanted to let y’all know that I have not abandoned this story. I’ll be on break with it until December and I am really excited to get back to it.
> 
> I am putting it aside for November as my focus has been on a NaNoWriMo project. It is going well and I am almost finished with my first draft. But the big thing is I have already had two lit agents ask to read it when it is done and had an editor express interest - I would think they were just being nice, except they made these offers solely to me in front of others and perhaps rudeness is the heart of true interest
> 
> When my first draft is done I am going to step back from it and let it sit for a couple weeks and return my focus to AYHYF. It is still deeply rooted in my heart. I appreciate your patience and your views and hope you’ll be patient with me while i finish up this other exciting project.
> 
> Much love,  
Linquist

Haymitch was not happy. At this point, I’m not entirely sure if I’m capable of doing anything to make the man happy or if perhaps Haymitch is just incapable of the emotion. While he railed against my latest form of idiocy, I wandered off to another corner of my mind where I could count the ways in which I have apparently let my mentors down. 

I’m not too proud to admit this offended me. Out of all people, except admittedly Rory, surely I have the most right to be angry and childish and immature. What do I honestly have to gain by acting by my better angels? There certainly isn’t much more of anything for me to lose. If anything, Haymitch should have been relieved that he could direct all his focus and sponsors onto just one tribute. If anything, it was a kindness for me to make such decisions so easy for him.

But I’m at least self-aware enough to know part of my anger is because I know he was right.

So I did the big and mature adult thing, claimed I was sick, and took dinner in my room. The only one I could have truly relied upon to leave me alone would have been Katniss. But Peeta and the stylists would try to calm tensions in the room, Haymitch’s glowering would say enough, and even Effie would not have been able to competently ignore silent argument that would have been ongoing between Haymitch and me.

Not that it is ultimately much more constructive to be where I am - lying on my back, on top of the covers, in a dark room, staring up at the ceiling. Outside my window I could have seen a view of the Capitol, but the walls of the training center allowed no sound to find its way to me. The silence pounded on my head even more than Haymitch’s words had.

Haymitch had been right. When I had picked up the bow,Ishe hadn’t considered the connotations or how every eye would have paid attention to me. A bow had only ever been a bow to me. It was a tool I could use with some modicum of success, neither my weapon of choice or an incapability. When I decided to try my hand at that station, I had only been thinking of working out my stress in one of the few ways I was allowed.

Would it have been better if I had just picked up the knives? Haymitch had certainly said as much, though Haymitch hadn’t exactly seen the range of my talents in that category. Perhaps he assumed they were only one step higher than what I can do with a bow. But even if I somehow proved myself to be the most adept tribute that ever graced the training center, it would not have involved the baggage I had picked up with the arrows.

Nothing less than absolute perfection with a bow would have been respected after the Girl on Fire. Every shot to hit a hair off the mark only highlighted the ways in which I do not measure up to the victors of the 74th games. And with the stunt the careers pulled this morning, I needed every positive light I could have managed to pin on myself.

It hadn’t affected the confusing alliance that had been forming, but it would have certainly been noticed by the gamemakers who were watching the training. It would certainly reach the notice of sponsors. If even Haymitch heard, I’m fairly confident Templesmith has gleefully ensured most of Panem knows as well.

It doesn’t matter that my little fainting spell had only been a stunt or that I’m far more dangerous than anyone has yet had a chance to see. Even if all I have is the  _ appearance _ of an easy target on my back, all the talent in the world will not help me if every set of unfriendly eyes lands on me first.

I don’t want to die. Even if I  _ am _ planning on it. No matter what I want, I’m not going to be of any help to Rory if I die before I have the chance to get him as close to the finish line as I can.

Thinking logically, there are really only two chances left for me to fix this. There is my private session with the gamemakers. I’ll have to think of something that will really stand out to them, but for a bunch of fat bureaucrats who are used to burly careers throwing spears, surely a little creativity will go a long way. But beyond that, the most I can do is put my strength into an alliance I don’t even believe in. I never figured I’d be a team player once we got to the arena. My plan was to keep Rory and myself as far from the center stage as I could, for as long as I can, and then pick off any leftover threats one by one. But I doubt that’s too feasible anymore. 

Slate’s carrying around a personal grudge against me and I doubt he has the emotional intelligence to consider Rory blameless for Cato’s death. His vendetta will have an easy enough time getting the other careers on board - not between the impression I’ve given them and the glory of taking out Twelve after last year’s games. Not to mention, I’m sure the blood hunt will make great tv, even without the grudge the Capitol has already been carrying around for me. 

As much as it makes my stomach turn in distaste, Rory and I will need the security of Joan’s alliance. If I keep my knives and my attention sharp, maybe I can take care of loose threads before they manage to choke Rory. 

I’m not sure how long I’ve been lying here. My untouched plate of food has gone cold at the foot of my bed and I’m getting pretty used to late nights staring at the ceiling. If I were back in twelve, I could look up at the stars or judge by how dark the sky was and get a fairly accurate picture. But here in the Capitol, the stars are all blocked out by the city lights and the Quarter Quell festivities that I don’t think have stopped since I got here. Maybe if I stood at my window, I could eventually see the paler blues leaking into the far corners of the sky, but lying where I am, I’m not going to discern one light or the other until the sun has fully risen. 

I roll over onto my side, wrapping my arms around myself and putting the celebrating Capitol at my back. I’m not sure if maybe I hate them more than I hate the gamemakers right now. I fully believe the gamemakers know exactly what they’re doing. The Capitol citizens all think it is just a show. Which one is worse?

A quiet knock sounds at my door and I wonder if maybe it is Rory or Cinna checking on me. I want to pretend to be asleep and ignore it, but the last voice I would ever expect to hear calls me out instead.

“If you’re asleep, Lynnwood, then Haymitch is sober,” she snarks. “Open the door.”

If anyone else had been there, I would have ignored it. It is more surprise than anything else that gets me out of bed and moving to the door. 

I have not hallucinated it out of exhaustion. Or if I have, it is certainly one complex hallucination. When I open the door, Katniss is standing there, hands shoved in the pocket of her jacket and looking as surly as if  _ I _ had just dragged  _ her _ out of bed. 

“Um … hi,” I say eloquently.

“Grab your shoes,” she says with something like a grunt. 

Confused and somewhat wondering if I am walking to my grave, I yank on the shoes I left abandoned at the foot of my bed after training. She doesn’t even wait for my to have the second one all the way on my foot before she starts walking away, so I hobble after her in some goblin-like semblance of a crouch with the back of my shoe stuck under my heel. Somewhere in her sleep, Effie has just had a nightmare.

I still don’t know where we’re going when I’ve gotten my shoe in place and I am walking in a more dignified manner. It isn’t until we reach the door to the rooftop gardens that I figure it out and even then I’m not exactly sure what we’re doing - besides maybe throwing me off the Capitol roof. 

We step out onto the terrace and I’m about to tell her there are less messy ways to get rid of me, when she whirls around with the same disgruntled frown. It almost makes  _ me _ apologize.

“I saw you with the bow earlier,” she says bluntly. “They were showing footage of the training center for commentary.”

“Well, that’s grand,” I say, crossing my arms and sounding as dour as her but feeling at least a little justified in it. 

“Clearly you’ve held a bow before and you’re a lot better than just not half-bad,” she says and I think there might have been a compliment in that, in spite of her narrowed grey eyes. Compliment or not, it feels like a lecture. “But you also look like you got there through trial and error without anyone actually  _ teaching _ you anything and it shows.”

“Well….” I cast around for an excuse or a counterpoint. “You’re right.”

_ Great recovery, Cara.  _

She apparently reads the consternation in my face because her the corner of her mouth twitches up in what I think might be a smile. “You’re not bad. I think you could actually be pretty good. You just need someone to show you.”

“Do you have a bow somewhere?” I ask lamely, looking around like she’ll pull one out of her leggings or a rosebush or something.

The lighting isn’t great, but I think she rolls her eyes.

“No, but there’s plenty that we can practice without a bow. Get into your stance.”

“My stance?” I ask blinking.

She  _ definitely _ rolls her eyes now. “Yes, Cara. Your stance for shooting.”

“I don’t have a particular stance,” I confess.

“The instructor in the training center is useless,” she snorts. 

But she still steps forward and shows me how to to place my feet and how to center my hips. I feel a little silly and I give her a nervous smile. “This right?”

Instead of answering she steps in and shoves my shoulders hard enough to send me stumbling backward into the light post behind me. The metal designs attempt to stamp themselves into my skin and I hiss. I’m about to snap at her when she interrupts me. 

“If you were about to throw a knife when I did that, would I have knocked you over?” She asks. 

“No,” I admit.

She nods. “Again.”

I take a breathe, center myself, and get into position. This time when she shoves me, I barely sway.

The next thing she does is make me practice the act of pulling back the string of a bow. She corrects everything from the way I hold my fingers to the angle of my elbow. She even adjusts my hand for how she expects I might need to compensate for a missing finger. I wouldn’t have thought my pinky finger on my left hand would have mattered, but if Katniss Everdeen thinks it would I’ll believe it. She directs me where to look, estimate where the guiding point of my aim should be. 

After that, I spend the next hour or so being hit and shoved from several angles. Everytime Katniss succeeds in either knocking me off balance, lowering my arm, or changing my stance, she makes me stop, focus, and get back into position. It goes on like this and I haven’t a clue how long it has been, but that lighter blue that I had been thinking of is starting to bleed into the distance and I feel like Katniss Everdeen has spent all night hitting and pushing me (we were always going to end up here, weren’t we).

But this time when Katniss makes the rounds, every part of me holds.

She steps back and nods. “Go back to the archery station today. Work on it for an hour, but not longer than that. We’ll go over it tonight.”

I nod, relaxing my stiff stance, somehow more confused than I was before we got to the roof. 

“Go get some sleep, Lynnwood,” she says, shoving her hands back in her pockets. “And shoot straight.”

She leaves ahead of me and her shoulders are hunched. I’m pretty sure I can imagine the scowl that she is wearing.

But later at training, my instructor is stunned. 

This time, however, no one saw a point in watching.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a double upload today because I meant for this to all be one chapter, but I decided to split it in half because that was where the break felt natural to me. I promise the next chapter is going to be longer.
> 
> I also forgot to mention that I'm thinking about doing NaNoWriMo this year! I haven't made up my mind and I haven't decided what I'm going to write (I have three somewhat outlined novel ideas). Because of that I'm going to do a few extra uploads this week and then it will probably just be a couple chapters a week -fortunately, I'm working pretty far ahead on this story!
> 
> As always, I appreciate you taking the time to read AYHYF. Your kudos, comments, and brutal critiques are chicken soup to my soul.
> 
> Also fun fact, my dad has done archery competitions for years and has won state championships a couple times. I, however, am terrible, have awful aim, and have no idea what I'm talking about. Take this chapter as fiction and not athletic advice.


	11. Following the footsteps of a rag doll dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As time runs out until the private training sessions, Cara learns more about what she does not know. Cinna causes her to rethink, Slate and Cara get to know each other, and Lafferty shares interesting information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not gone! I did not abandon this story, but I participated in NaNoWriMo this year. Honestly didn't think I was going to get anywhere but instead I ended up writing a 65000 word rough draft that I actually really like! Needed a bit of a break from writing after that to be honest, but now I am back and happy to return to this world.
> 
> Originally, this chapter was just going to be the private training sessions, but as I was writing I felt like Cara needed a couple other things to happen. Hope you enjoy this chapter! Comments and kudos help revive me after Nano ate my soul

The problems I had both discovered and created at training the first day were not fixed by the time the second of training had passed. I didn’t need any more updates from my mentors to know that Templesmith and Capitol programming were having a field day with my first day’s performance. 

Which is not to say our last full day of training was a loss. There wasn’t enough time to make me a master, but the eye for aim I already possessed gave me the edge I needed. I felt comfortable and confident at the other stations I went to - even as Lyssa hovered by the edges, never fully approaching me again. 

If I were braver, I might have pulled her into the fold of the shaky alliance that was forming around myself - or perhaps, more accurately, around Joan. But I had used up all allotments I had of bravery and I could not bring myself to increase the body count of my friends before all this is over. 

Before I know it, before I am prepared for it, our last full day of training is finished. Haymitch and Peeta dedicate our last evening to spend with Rory, going over his various strategies for meeting with the gamemakers. Katniss, after our night of bonding, has disappeared and I do not ask where she has gone. I am not sure if the focus on Rory is simply an allocation of resources or a trust that I am capable enough to prove myself before a panel, but I can’t help but be relieved for the quiet that finally settles over the wing of the apartment where I have hidden myself.

At the end of the residential halls is a floor to ceiling window that overlooks the Capitol. Like my room, the window can be changed to show scenery around Panem; but unlike my room there is no illogical fear that the lock will click behind me, trapping me in. Haymitch’s voice is a disgruntled hum from down the hall, surprisingly soothing given how much we have clashed the last few days. 

The window shows a forest that looks like the woods back home. It is evening in this false world, and the soft shifting of trees is achingly familiar to me. The colors of a watery sunset slipping through the leaves is soothing. I have no chair, but the wall is at my back and if it were not for the silence around me I could perhaps convince myself that it is a tree at my back and I am back home. 

The thought is lonely in a way I don’t fully understand.

When I hear the sound of someone settling onto the floor across from me, I don’t have to look to know who it is. Katniss has escaped this place to the extent that a victor is able and I can still hear Haymitch, Peeta, and Rory in a low murmur farther away.

Cinna, blessedly, does not expect me to speak at first. He lets me sit in silence, watching the trees which draw out such mixed feelings in me before he eventually speaks himself. 

“I’m sorry this is happening to you,” he says honestly and I look at him surprised. It isn’t the sort of think I would expect someone to say so openly here, especially someone who works for the Capitol - as much as I might like Cinna personally. “It isn’t fair in a normal year and it isn’t fair that out of all of us, you’re going in blind.”

I blink at him, frowning, and he seems to let his words settle in around us. Am I supposed to thank him? To agree? But after a moment, he doesn’t wait for me; he just goes on in explanation.

“Haymitch, Katniss, Peeta, Portia, we’ve all been through this before,” he says calmly, looking away from me now to where a mockingjay has alighted upon a branch in the settling twilight. “And Rory got to be part of their circle back in 12. No one wants to exclude you, they’re not trying to abandon you. But none of us were prepared for you.”

That last statement stings even though I know it shouldn’t. It isn’t somehow a degradation to me or a rejection, but a simple truth. They did not have the opportunity to be prepared for me. But the other things he said were not true. I knew it and he did as well, and I couldn’t help the hair rising on the back of my neck and the bile in my throat. I didn’t think Cinna of all people would lie to me. 

“I don’t see a point in pretending this something it isn’t,” I answer bluntly, keeping my own eyes on that mockingjay who is now sifting their beak through their feathers. “There is only one victor and we have all made up our minds about who that will be.”

“There will only be one victor in the Capitol’s games,” Cinna agrees, leaning forward and placing a hand over mine, where it sits clenched on my knee. I flinch, but I do not pull away. “Everyone around you is going to have an agenda, Cara,” he warns. “But don’t assume you always know what that is. We want to see you come home too, not just Rory. It matters if we lose you.”

I stare at the place where his thumb rubs circles over my knuckles. My right hand has all its fingers, but there are still course callouses and scars; places where chemicals have rendered my hands red and stained. My thoughts flicker to the shed behind the tanner’s house and the first few winters with only my threadbare blankets and my blankets to keep me from freezing. Its a miracle really that all I have are my wrecked hands. 

He doesn’t ask me to say anything else. He lets me ponder his advice, so much of which flirts with the point of treason. Is the Capitol listening? I know they can, but am I important enough in the grand scheme of things to pay attention?

Something about Cinna’s words makes me think I am. Maybe not in the way I expect, but in some way. 

I catch his thumb with mine for a moment and then pull my hand away. I don’t know what words there could possibly be for me to say, but Cinna seems to understand what I am trying to convey because he stands and brushes his simple black pants of nonexistent dust. “You’ll blow them away, Cara Lynnwood,” he says kindly. “Just wait and see.”

He then leaves me to the company of my trees and the mockingjay, until the darkness of this false forest has fully arrived and even the mockingjay disappears. 

His comment about agendas is what keeps me awake this time. Tossing and turning in my too soft bed, I can’t stop wondering what exactly he meant. Out of context, it seems like good advice for the Games. Be on my guard. Everyone has their own agenda and do not trust it to align with yours. But Cinna’s words in their totality seem to suggest something else. 

It is true that the more time I spend here in the Capitol, the more I suggest people are dissatisfied with the Games - especially now that they have to see their beloved victors suffer and grieve. I fully believe that if given the choice, there are those who would wish to see all of us home safe. But that is just it. We lack the choice. Good wishes mean nothing here. 

This time, when I dream, I am chasing through the false forest after the boy from the woods. I don’t know why exactly, but it seems to be urgent that I find him. When I catch up, hand reaching out to grasp for his wrist, he turns and it is not Gale Hawthorne but Cinna; holding a dress of smoke. He tells me I don’t understand and I am just about to insist ‘so I’ve been told’ when everything dissolves in ash and smoke that pushes further and further down my throat and into my lungs.

When my chest feels ready to split open, my eyes snap open. There will only be three more mornings in this bed, and then I will be in the arena.

I dawdle until all there is time to do is to grab a roll of bread from the breakfast table before Effie ushers us out to the elevator, tutting about being late. We arrive, technically on time, but are spared no socializing before we are dismissed to visit the stations.

Once again, I find no energy within myself to socialize with our ‘alliance’. Haymitch had informed us that both Joan and Kol formally requested both of us as allies, but I feel no safer in it than I did before. Rory does not hesitate to join the two of them at snares, while I meander my way to the fishing station in the hopes of avoiding anymore forced interaction.

The rest of the room all seems able to read my mood. Even Lyssa has abandoned her place as my shadow this morning. My thoughts swirl around what I will do in the private session that can help me be remembered, about Cinna’s words, compiling a list of everything I can think of that I know I do not know.

There is one person that does not care about my mood and braves the wall of silence I have built up around me. I see the harsh lights of the training center glinting off of unfairly shiny, platinum curls and I know who it is who has settled in beside me. I am not afraid, no; but perhaps I am resigned.

Calmly, wordlessly, curiously, Slate picks up a wire that sits nearby where I am making fishing lines out of grass. He bends it in some semblance of a hook, no truly aiming for anything. This is the moment where the instructor should approach him, return from where they wandered after leaving me to my task. But our instructor seems to be unwilling to approach this confrontation and glancing over I spot her wary eyes watching us.

Glancing around the training center, I realize there are many eyes watching us. Some are more subtle actors than others. Joan keeps peeking over at us over the knot she is tying. Kol, however, blatantly leans against a support beam and watches us with a slight frown. 

Deciding whatever it is he is twisting his enough, Slate curiously drags the tip along his middle finger on his left land. The wire is sharp, creating a thin slice over the callous on his finger from years of weapon training. Blood bursts quickly from the tiny incision, quickly running down his finger. Curiously, he flicks his hand and several drops land on the grass laid out in front of us. 

“Might want to get that cleaned up,” I tell him, keeping my voice level. “It would be tragic if you got blood poisoning before we even get there.”

Slate smirks as if that was some inside joke of ours, grabs a particularly thick blade of grass, and wraps it several times around his bleeding finger. “Concerned for me, Cara Lynnwood? Haven’t you made enough friends already?”

“I’m not really the friendly type,” I tell him, tying off my fishing line and reaching for some of the other materials for making hooks. “But I’ve always been the sort to believe in good sportsmanship.”

“How are your allies coming along?” He asks with a tilt of his head and a lilting of his brow. “Does seem to be a fun little table you’ve had coming along. Not sure if babysitting is really the strategy to work with. Or maybe the common denominator is the kids without a victor legacy are sticking together.”

“Everyone here is related to a victor,” I snort. “That is the entire point of this.”

Slate actually leans his head back and laughs, like we are having some kind of friendly conversation. “That’s cute, Twelve. Yes, your grandmother, Annie Cresta, Portia Tripp. They won their games. But you and I both know they weren’t victors.”

When he looks back at me, the laughter is gone from his eyes and his grin looks positively feral. “You weren’t raised by victors. I’m sure we’ll see how that matters very soon.”

Carefully maintaining my calm, I pick at a bit of dirt from under my nail with my shabby fishhook. “And yet you’re the only one here related to a dead tribute. I wonder if we’ll see that in the arena as well.”

I know as soon as I say it that it was a stupid thing to say. I knew before as well, which was why my heart had been racing even as I did everything I could to seem unbothered. But I can see the switch that flips behind Slate’s eyes the instant the words come out of my mouth. He had not been feral before, but his teeth are bared and for a moment I thought I saw red in his eyes. 

I glance down to the sharp wire hook he abandoned next to us, wondering if I will have time to grab for it before he lunges. I wonder if the peacekeepers will just shoot us both or if they’ll try to break us apart for the sake of the show. 

But instead of any of this happening, before any of us (peacekeepers included) have time to react, there is a presence behind me and a hand on my shoulder.

It is Lafferty Latier. Scrawny, big eyed, Lafferty Latier who stands beside me. “Cara,” he says calmly. “Saw you working on those hooks. Think you can help me out? Mine are shit.”

He glances over at Slate, as if he hadn’t really realized he was there before. “Two, working on your lines as well?”

It is a bald faced lie, not in small part because of how utterly impossible it is for him to have missed the interaction that seems to have captured the attention of the rest of the training center. It is also clearly a lie because my fish hooks are shit - my diet from before relied upon nets and traps, not hooks.

But it succeeds in breaking Slate’s attention from me and returning him to awareness of where we are. He ignores Lafferty but looks at me.

“I guess we’ll see what matters soon enough,” he says, charm returned to his voice. “Good luck with your private sessions this afternoon.”

“You as well,” I tell him.

He casually pushes himself to his feet, unwrapping the bloody blade of grass and dropping it to the ground beside us. He strolls away as if this was a normal conversation between aquaintances. Lafferty hesitates, about to take Slate’s spot, before eying the rather gross, bloody, grass and chooses to take a seat on my other side rather than touch it. 

Almost overly eager, the instructor approaches him and begins to walk him through various hooks, and I am left to my own contemplations again. Predictably, my thoughts again turn to Cinna’s advice about people and their own agendas. I don’t know that I know Lafferty’s here. Or rather, I am sure that I have no idea what Lafferty’s agenda is here and so I add it to my list of unknowns.

I am, by all appearances, not a strong ally. He has none of the emotional attachment that he seems to have to me and if Slate had injured me, I can ultimately think of no reason it would especially disadvantage him; except, of course, if he is part of our alliance and doesn’t want to see one of us weakened before we get there.

But even then, I still cannot think of why I would be any great loss to him or to the alliance. They do not know me or my real capabilities. Nothing beyond Joan’s nostalgia should really endear me to them, and with years behind us that should be tenuous at best.

When the instructor is done and has set Lafferty up with a few practice tasks of his own, he turns to me, adjusts his glasses, and shares an uncomfortable smile. “Any ideas of what you’re going to do in the practice sessions this afternoon?”

I shrug, thinking it is relatively truthful. I know I’ll throw knives; I haven’t planned further than that. “I’ve got a couple directions I might go. What about you.”

He huffs, rubbing the back of his neck before focusing in on his hook. It already looks better than mine. His hands are steady and he seems attentive to even the smallest details in the bend of the shape. “I’m not sure. I’m an engineer, but I’m not sure how much electrical equipment they’ll have lying around for me to play with.”

His voice drips sarcasm and I find myself smiling, curious. “You’re an engineer?”

He nods, eyes lighting up, and he abandons his hook to adjust his glasses again. “I’ve been apprenticing with my uncle. We were actually working on a development in force fields before …” his voice breaks off and he doesn’t need to continue, I understand.

“I can’t say I know anything about force fields,” I admit. “Didn’t exactly have need for them in Twelve. What was it you were looking at?”

“There’s a weakness in current force fields,” he explains. “A chink in the armor. You can see it.”

He nods towards the upper balcony where the gamemakers are meandering, caught between watching us and the food and drink brought out for them. I frown, not sure what he is talking about, until I see it.

A small ripple. Like just above the rocks in summer. It is small, hanging a few feet up from the ledge, but I see it.

“I didn’t know there was a forcefield there,” I say curiously.

He shrugs. “I didn’t either. My uncle never said anything about it.”

"Why the chink?" I ask. "Seems like it wouldn't be something you'd want in a forcefield."

"It's the weak point," he says again, like it is supposed to make sense to me now. "The forcefield extends out from certain electrical points. It's not just one forcefield, but several. The middle is where it is farthest from all sources. The larger the forcefield, the more you'll have."

I nod, like I understand. I _think_ I do, the way a kid might understand the science taught in school; minimally, knowing only the basic facts.

We fall back into our own individual thoughts and I find myself thinking that, regardless of whether I am clearly valuable as an ally, I am very glad Lafferty is mine.

  
  



	12. I just want to be alive while I'm here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The private training sessions arrive; Cara's last chance to repair the damage she has done. But she is fairly sure that Rory Hawthorne is an idiot and if nothing else she will ensure the gamemakers will not be thinking about him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A double upload day! This is a very short chapter and I'm uploading it right after because it was originally part of the last one. Also as an apology for my NaNoWriMo break.

After lunch, I don’t hide away from the others. I am by no means chatty. But I sit among Joan, Lafferty, Kol, Rory, Dee, and Penn who all have enough nervous chatter to fill the space for me.

Lafferty is the first to go and Joan, in an unusually somber voice, looks to Kol. “Have you made up your mind about what you’re going to do?”

“I’ve thought about just going in there and holding my middle fingers up for fifteen minutes, but Finnick might string me up by the balls for that,” he says with a huff. He glances at the younger members of our alliance-ship, as if just remembering they were there, and his cheeks actually dust a little pink. “After he’s done laughing that is.”

Joan laughs as well, but it is a more mechanical sound than I’ve ever heard from her. “It’s all a joke as it is. They’re just going to think we’re our family members anyways. Might as well just go in, make a back brace, and then take a nap.”

Penn giggles at this and the smile Joan gives her is softer.

Rory, however, is looking at her seriously and frowning. I wonder if he is about to impart some of the wisdom Peeta and Hamitch passed onto him, to tell them that their scores can matter. What he says is much, much worse.

“My brother would probably just set the whole thing on fire.”

The others laugh like this is a joke, but I try to fight down my growing horror. I do not know Gale Hawthorne, but from what I do know I agree. I think, however, of the boy on the train who was worried about waving because he wanted to make his brother proud.

I want to take Rory by the shoulders, make him look me in the eye, and tell him that Gale Hawthorne can go straight to hell. Get the score he needs to survive this thing and then go home. 

I don’t do this and soon after the others file out, one by one, until it is just Rory and I remaining.

When at last his name is called, impulsively, almost a spasm, I reach out to touch his arm. He looks at me, frowning in a way that looks angry but I am starting to understand is just the face Hawthorne boys wear when they are thinking too hard. 

“You don’t need to be your brother. You just need to survive in there and go home to him.”

This does seem to pull him from his thoughts and he swallows, nodding tightly. His tension screams nerves and I smile. “You’ll knock them dead. I’ll see you after?”

He takes a deep breath, then gives me his most confident grin. He looks so much like Gale, I almost seem to dissociate for a moment - pulled between two places in time. 

“You too, Cara,” he says, nodding, and then turns to pass through the doors into the observation area.

As the minutes tick by, I cast all my hopes out to the universe that Rory will listen to me and do the smart thing. When the minutes seem to stretch by longer and longer, my hopes change to expletives that I shout into the void in the hopes that Gale Hawthorne will hear how much he  _ sucks right now _ .

It is clear that Rory’s session is running long, but it can’t be more than five or ten minutes past when I am at last called in and I let myself hope that maybe they are just less efficient when I’m the last one.

As soon as I step in the doors, however, I know that Rory is as big an idiot as his brother. Before I notice anything else, I notice the tension which is suspended over the room, snapped tightly into place around my neck. The gamemakers are all seated, they are not laughing or drinking or talking. This is not good.

I look around, hoping for some hint at what he did, and I see a large swath of red paint - the kind used in camouflage that is smeared and faded on the floor. Like someone had tried to clean it up, but given up. Half gone, but still clear enough for me to read, I see the word  _ reaped _ .

If Rory survives this arena, I am going to kill him.

I look around, trying not to panic, and wondering how on earth I can fix this. I am quite confident that the gamemakers will not care about my heartfelt appeal that Rory didn’t mean it and is in fact just enormously stupid. 

My eyes settle back upon the smeared red of the word and my resolve hardens. It is a terrible idea, but the only one I have. 

If I cannot fix what Rory did than I will do something so stupid and reckless that none of them will be thinking of him at all. 

Moving quickly, not entirely sure how much time I lost in taking it all in, I grab the supplies I am going to need: rope, a target dummy, the first paint color I can grab, and a few throwing knives.

A few quick words painted on the dummy, I approach the balcony where the gamemakers are watching with unreadable expressions. I examine the forcefield and the bars on the ceiling above us. Tying a careful knot around the dummies neck, there is still about twenty feet of rope left. I tie the other end around one knife, step a  _ very  _ _careful distance_ back, and throw it, aiming upwards so it soars over one ceiling beam and falls, swinging quite dangerously in the air.

I have to wait a minute to approach and it occurs to me that there are many parts of this plan that were poorly thought out. But I grab the handle of the knife from where it hangs over my head, pull it down, and plunge it into the floorboards. It holds and the dummy swings up, inches away from the forcefield and only a foot or two away from where they sit; stunned perhaps by the mannequin before them or perhaps by how elaborately stupid this whole thing is. But I am not done.

I cross the room, examining the metal racks against the wall that will make for an easy ascent. I climb until I am directly level with the dummy, watching it sway ever so slightly. It is not the best position, with one leg jammed into the rack and the other on lower shelf. But I am stable enough to put force behind my throw.

I breathe in. I breathe out. This is only a bird. In the woods I would chart its course before I throw, knocking it out of the air. I visualize where I had seen the chink, the shimmering weakness.

I throw and I throw straight. It cuts through the mannequin's throat, causing the body to split away and collapse to the floor. The knife does not stop and instead slices through the weakness, slamming into the wall behind them. It quivers, ever so slightly, but my throw drove the blade straight to the hilt and there is not enough give for it to do more than shudder.

I drop to the floor, maybe fifteen feet away from where the body of my now headless dummy lies, collapsed; the words  _ happy 76th Hunger Games _ slightly smeared now because I never gave them time to dry.

The gamemakers sit frozen, some expressionless, some with their jaws hanging open. The head gamemaker - Heavensbee, I think I remember; certainly he was new - watches me with narrowed eyes.

“May the odds be ever in your favor,” I tell him, then turn and walk out the doors. 

  
  



	13. This is all just dead air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The scores from the private training sessions are in. Cara decides Gale Hawthorne is not on her list of favorite people. And in the latest in a string of poor decisions, Cara meets a celebrity.

The apartment is dead silent when the elevator doors open. It is not the silence of people pursuing independent interests. Stress and anxiety is a thick fog and I can feel it from here. When I make it to the common living space, I find everyone waiting. 

Haymitch stands by the far wall, one fist clenched and the other on his face. Peeta and Katniss sit next to each other, hands brushing. They aren’t holding hands, but their fingers just barely touch. As I watch, Katniss pulls away, staring at the floor. Cinna and Portia are seated similarly on an opposite couch. Rory sits facing away from me, shoulders hunched. I am not sure he regrets what he did, but he certainly regrets their response.

“Well, whatever you did, they won’t be talking about it,” I tell him, unable to rid the bite from my voice. His shoulders rise up higher and Effie, who I now realize is next to him, leaning forward, lets out a strangled sound that sounds a lot like _manners_.

“I have _ idiots _ for tributes,” Haymitch snarls. “Only this year I don’t even have an angle I can work with you.”

“What did you do?” Cinna asks, sounding resigned.

I feel my own chin tucking into my throat, a mirrored response to Rory. “I threw knives.”

Portia closes her eyes and takes a breath for forbearance. 

Peeta is clearly trying not to smile. “I think she took a page out of your book, Katniss.”

“What did you do?” I asked curiously.

“I shot an apple out of a pig’s mouth,” she says, frowning. But I think I see the corner of her mouth twitch. “They were ignoring me.”

Oh, okay. I was worse.

“What did you do, Rory?” I turn to him and he still won’t face me. “I saw the paint and the word reaped on the floor. They didn’t even try to cover it up.”

He turns slightly towards me and I make my way to sit on the ottoman in the center. My back is to Haymitch, which might be a bad move, strategically. But I do not want to face him right now even _if_ he may attempt to strangle me at first opportunity. 

“I got a dummy and painted Seneca Crane on it,” he says, sheepishly rubbing the top of his head. “Then wrote reaped on the ground.”

“Seneca Crane?” I ask blankly.

“The last gamemaker,” Cinna answers calmly.

“But why …” I frown and then it dawns on me. “Oh. Really?” 

I look at Katniss this time, though I’m not sure why I look for her confirmation. But she nods in answer to me.

“They didn’t like our stunt with the berries,” Peeta says quietly.

The words hang heavy with implied knowledge that everyone in the room but me seems to have. A feeling takes root in my chest, insidious and stinging. I am alone here. I am completely alone. It isn’t new knowledge, but it is a harsh reminder. 

I look at Rory, unable to restrain my frown. “I told you not to do something stupid,” I accuse.

“You didn’t actually use those words,” he tells his hands in his lap, sulking and every bit his age.

“I told you to not be your brother and to do the smart thing,” I snap. “I think that was between the lines.”

In the corner of my eye, I see Katniss staring at me. She still frowns, which is not unusual, but it seems like she is working something out. Beneath my shirt, I am aware of where Gale’s ring sits against my chest. As far as I know, Katniss has no idea it’s there, but I feel a sudden urge to defend myself to her. To assure her that I have it for Rory’s sake, not mine. There is nothing that connects Gale to me beyond his gratitude for what I have done for Prim and what I will do for Rory.

And with how I am feeling right now, I probably would beat him down with my tanning tools the next time I see him, right after calling him an idiot. It is likely to his benefit that we will never see each other again. 

Rory, still looking at his head. “Gale wouldn’t just do the smart thing, he’d do the brave thing.”

“I don’t know shit about your brother,” I tell him, standing up. “But I’m pretty sure he would do whatever it is he had to do. He didn’t ask me help you be brave, he asked me to help you get _home_.”

Ignoring everyone else, I run my hands over my face. “Either way, what I did was worse. They won’t be talking about you.”

I ignore the very loud chorus of Effie, Haymitch, and Rory all demanding to know what it was that I did. Walking faster in case someone bodily tries to stop me, I make it to my room and quickly shut the door behind me. I am the one who locks the door now.

I can’t avoid them forever and I’m not really trying to. At some point someone knocks on my door and when they call my name, I realize it is Peeta. But I can’t really picture anything constructive coming out of today, so after he leaves I request to have dinner brought to my room. 

I pick at my meal, unable to muster the interest to eat more than a couple bites of any one thing. But I watch the time, and soon enough it runs out. When I leave my room, everyone is already gathered back in the sitting area and the TV is already on. I’m not sure anyone is really paying attention to the talk show that is currently being displayed, but no one yells at me when I join them so I am counting it a victory.

I take the empty spot next to Rory, Effie on my other side.

When the show shifts to the scores, it captures all our attention. Slate gets a ten, which does nothing to make me feel better but is still about what I expected. District Three surprises me - Penn gets a seven and Lafferty pulls an eight. Kol surprises no one with his ten and little Dee managed to get a six. Joan boasts a ten and I cannot begin to guess what she did.

I can’t help but notice a pattern as the numbers and photos flick by. The scores are averaging higher this year, the result of a crop of tributes born from victors. There is the career pack, as always, but in a sense there are a great deal more of us who could be considered ‘careers’ in its loosest definition. I am sure Snow has a political angle he is working as well, but I can also see how this will make for good TV to the Capitol citizens.

Lyssa, my small shadow, gets a seven. 

Rory, I suspect without realizing it, grabs onto my forearm. My heart pounds alongside his and I squeeze his hand in comfort. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it.

Rory’s picture appears and he looks so scrawny and young. Then a 12 flashes below it and the air in the room just freezes in our lungs.

My photo follows. I look tired and bored. Then a 1 flashes beneath me and all that frozen air seems to melt and sour inside of me.

“They’re making you targets,” Peeta says as my 1 fades away. “Rory is a 12 and not prepared for it - sorry,” he says quickly to Rory, who shakes his head without disagreeing. “All the careers are going to target him.”

“Cara is a 1 and _ everyone _will target her if they think she’ll be an easy kill,” Haymitch says gruffly. “A bloody kill is a good way to get sponsors in the arena.”

“I’m not going to have any sponsors,” I whisper.

“Not if I have anything to do about it,” Effie huffs. She is clearly still displeased with us, but there is a protective edge to her voice. “There are plenty of people who still want to sponsor you because of what you did for Katniss’s sister. We just need to make them love you at the interviews tomorrow night.”

Katniss and I both wince.

But Katniss also says the one thing that comforts me. “People who know the Games are going to see this for what it is. They’ll be interested in you. They’ll want to know what it is you did.”

Haymitch nods reluctantly. “We can work that angle. You’re already mysterious, we’ll play that up.”

I nod, taking in a shaky breath and look at Rory who is still ghostly white.

“Good thing we’ve got allies,” I tell him and I hope he doesn’t catch the bitterness behind my words. He gives me an unsteady smile and gets to his feet. With a mumbled goodnight, he disappears down the hall.

“They’ll never see you coming,” Cinna says, leaning forward to take my hand. “And I’m going to make sure you are _ unforgettable _.”

One by one, the others leave the sitting room. Haymitch is the last to go and he pauses, looking like he is going to say something, before he shakes his head and disappears down the hallway too.

I sit there, long after the lights go out. Long after Cinna and Portia have left our floor and long after the residential hall has gone quiet. The TV has been muted, but from the expression of Claudius Templesmith, you would think it was a holiday. To the Capitol, I suppose, it must be. On more than one occasion, I see my face. I see footage from the training center, centered on me when I look the most lost or confused. 

There is a shot of me, on my knees, Lafferty behind me and Slate before me. Slate looks enormous and powerful. I look small and with Lafferty as my defense, it does not look promising. At a voice command, the tv shuts off and I whirl away from the couch, bare feet guiding my way to the elevator. 

Technically speaking, tributes can visit other floors, but even as I hit the button on the elevator, I know that I am making a mistake. It doesn’t stop me from stepping in, however, or from hitting the button to close the doors. The ground floor is where mentors observe the games, spend their time schmoozing with each other, and making phone calls. I’ve heard Haymitch mention a bar, Effie the courtyard gardens.

It is the gardens, not the bar that I’m thinking of when the elevator silently opens out onto the quiet ground floor. The lobby is large, floors a sparkling marble tile. On one side are the doors out into the Capitol. The other is the doors into the atrium. I can see the garden from here - though only in the parts lit by the globe lighting, scattered like stars across a glass ceiling. 

I know exactly how bad an idea this is before I have taken three steps towards it.

“Tribute,” says the deep voice of a peacekeeper behind me. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. Three peacekeepers have emerged from a door behind the desk. The woman seated there looks bored behind the surgically implanted cat whiskers that adorn her face. But all I see is the gun strapped to the middle man’s waist, where his hand now rests. “Stay where you are.”

“I thought tributes were allowed throughout the training center,” I say, trying to remain as calm and unaffected in spite of how I can hear my heart racing in my ears.

“They are,” says a rich voice from behind me.

I whirl around in time for a hand to come down on my shoulder. Standing in front of me, looking as handsome as every Capitol footage ever promised, is a man so distinctive that even I recognize him. The chiseled jaw, sparkling sea-green eyes, and sunkissed skin all set Finnick Odair worlds apart from any other man I’ve ever seen before. I think of Slate, who is inarguably handsome even as abhorrent as he is to me. But now that I have seen Finnick Odair in person, it strikes me how incredibly boyish the other tributes are - Slate included. The hand that is not on my shoulder holds a drink, one that he takes a lazy sip from now.

I push this aside and turn back to the peacekeepers, whose expressions are now twisted into a scowl. The same one who spoke earlier is the one to speak now.

“Tributes cannot be about the tower without the accompaniment of a mentor,” he says in a gruff voice that has lost the aggression it had with me. His hand has left his gun. I doubt any of them want the consequences of threatening the Capitol’s darling. 

“Funny,” Odair drawls, tossing back the remnants of his drink. “I wasn’t aware of that change in regulation. Certainly no one informed the mentors.”

The peacekeeper flushes red, scowling, and one of the others starts to say something before cutting himself off.

“No matter,” Finnick smiles. “She’s with me. She’s accompanied.”

“You are not her district mentor,” the one who had yet to speak challenges, eyes narrowed.

“Her mentor is Haymitch Abernathy,” Finnick snorts. “I’m sure you don’t honestly believe he is capable of chaperoning anyone this time of night. Besides, she has formally accepted an alliance with both of my tributes.”

Reluctantly, the first peacekeeper crosses his arms. “We will have to report this.”

“I’m sure you will,” Finnick answers and I don’t have to be looking at him to know he is smirking. “Come now, Lynnwood. I’m accompanying you.”

His hand squeezes my shoulder just shy of hurting, brokering no room for argument. He turns me and I am led towards the open doors to the right of the elevator, where a mostly deserted bar awaits. Eying the shining surfaces of the tables, the plush velvet of the stools, and the nice attire of the scattered mentors present, I understand why Haymitch chooses to drink on our floor.

“You know, I thought it was just Haymitch’s personality,” Finnick snarks in my ear, guiding me to a seat on one of the bar stools. “But you’re every bit of what he says you are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So several new things! We have a new title and I've added in a prologue. I've figured out where this story is headed and I'm really excited for it. I'll be going back and rewriting some chapters as I post new ones, so keep an eye out for more updates! I'd love to hear what you think - whether you hate the new title or you're curious about Finnick and Cara meeting.  
Comments and kudos renew my spirit.


	14. But I won't follow you into the dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick Odair is not as charming as the legends would suggest, but he does impart some familiar advice.

Finnick takes a seat at the stool next to me and waves down the bartender, an individual with brilliant jade green hair skin that looks like it was painted white. Their eyes are a similar shade of green to their hair, but there is no pupil or iris or whites to their eye. I wonder if it is a contact or a tattoo and I push down a shudder.

He orders himself another drink, a water for me, and a plate of assorted appetizers. The bartender doesn’t say anything; tapping our order into a tablet and winking before they stroll away to fill his request. Finnick taps his fingers on his empty glass until they return, trading it out and dropping the water before me. 

Finnick sighs, takes another long drink before setting his glass down with enough force to cause the bar to shudder. He runs one hand through his carefully tousled hair and shakes his head.

“You’re just not going to play their games, are you Lynnwood?” He asks, looking at me.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I tell him honestly, fingers fiddling with the velvet lining of my stool.

“No, I don’t think you do,” he agrees with a snort.

“You’re not as charming as your interviews make you out to be,” I say without thinking, before flushing. 

Rather than be angry, he throws his head back and laughs uproariously. “You caught me on an off night, twelve,” he says once he has calmed, wiping a tear away from his watering eyes. “I’ve been out with some new friends of mine and I was just planning on having a drink to take the edge off.” 

The plate of our appetizers arrives and he grabs some unfamiliar fried thing - it looks like seafood, I think - and tosses it in his mouth. He winks at me and chews. “Catch me when these games are over, Lynnwood. I’ll show you charming.”

I don’t say what I am assuming both of us are thinking and instead pick up one of the fried things he ate, eyeing it warily.

“Calamari,” he says, leaning his cheek on the palm of his hand. His eyes rove over me critically. “You should try it. You’re the first tribute I’ve ever seen from District Twelve actually  _ lose  _ weight when you make it to the Capitol. I thought the food was supposed to be a highlight for you.”

I look over at him sharply, but every word dies on my tongue. So instead I nibble on the calamari in my hand. I’m not sure how I feel about the taste and I’m fairly sure I’m not fond of the rubbery texture. But it makes me aware of just how hungry I actually am and I find it gone in seconds.

“You need to be eating,” he says, passing me some kind of stuffed roll. “You’re not going to make it far if you’re starving before you ever set foot on the ground in there.”

“Shouldn’t you be more invested in keeping your own tributes alive?” I ask, but I still bite into the roll - salted vegetables and something I think is pork bursts in my mouth and I have to fight not to close my eyes and moan.

“I’m never invested in seeing any kids die, twelve,” Finnick says and his words are so incredibly tired I find myself looking him over again, noticing that, in spite of his handsome features, the shadows under his eyes more closely resemble bruises. It is a statement which should not be controversial, but here is just shy of open rebellion. So I swallow the last of my roll and say something more honest than I mean to.

“I can’t eat,” I say quietly. “I can’t sleep.”

“I can tell,” Finnick says dryly, but there’s no malice in his voice and I can’t bring myself to reproach him. It occurs to me that if I met him in a different lifetime I think I could like him. “But you have to. Doesn’t make it easier. But you have to.”

I shake my head, but I take a drink of water and another bite of the roll. 

“Why did you do it?” He asks and I wonder how many times I’ll be asked this before it is over.

“Primrose had something to back to when all of this over,” I say, gesturing the almost finished roll around us. I don’t mean the bar, but Finnick seems to understand what I mean. “I have nothing waiting for me in Twelve. I couldn’t imagine only being able to bring home one - Rory or Katniss's sister, I mean - so I made it so they didn’t have to choose.”

“Twelve still has two tributes,” Finnick counters.

“It’s not the same thing as if Primrose were the other tribute and we both know it,” I shoot him down.”

“Maybe,” he admits. “But I think a lot of the mentors here are getting really tired of having to choose which kids have to die too.”

“That’s a very dangerous thing to say,” I tell him because it is true and what else is there for me to say?

“Saying anything is dangerous now, Lynnwood,” Finnick says, draining the last of his drink. He looks at it like he isn’t sure if he is going to order another, then shakes his head and pushes the plate back over to me. Obediently, I grab another of the rolls and nibble on it. “You don’t think what you did gave people ideas?”

“I wasn’t the only one to volunteer for a kid this year,” I tell him, resisting the urge to chew on my nailbeds. 

“No, you weren’t,” he affirms and there is almost pride in his voice. “But those kids weren’t nationally publicized and discussed as the District tribute for  _ months _ leading up to Reaping Day. Every person in every district went in knowing your name wasn’t even in the ring - if they even knew your name. The Capitol gave you a free pass and then you  _ turned them down _ . You think people didn’t see that? You think that has nothing to do with why the gamemakers gave you a one? Why Claudius Templesmith is on national television  _ every night _ trying to make you out to be less than you are?”

“That wasn’t what I meant to do,” I whisper, leaning away from him like he had shoved me. Of course I understood that I had gone against what the Capitol wanted. Of course we all knew that Primrose was who they wanted to be here. But Finnick made it all sound so much bigger than what it was. And the things he was saying were the sort of things I wouldn’t have dared say to the dogs in the quiet of the woods. And he was implicating  _ me _ in it. “You shouldn’t  _ say _ things like that.”

“No, I probably shouldn’t,” Finnick agrees, a grin overtaking his features as he looks up at the ceiling. “And I’m sure I’ll be reprimanded for it. But it will just be a slap on the wrists because Snow still has  _ use _ for me. Just like Snow still has use for these Games. So I guess that’s my advice for you while I’m your chaperoning mentor. Remember what is is people are using these Games for. Everyone has an agenda here and it isn’t always the same agenda as the Capitol.”

There it is, that word again. 

“You sound like Cinna,” I say and Finnick smiles.

“Cinna, now  _ there _ is man. If two men this beautiful say the same thing, it probably means you should listen,” he says and then taps his finger on the plate. “Now finish your dinner. I need to return you. I hear tomorrow you have a big, big,  _ big _ day.”

I shoot him a look but he smiles benignly.

I don’t manage to finish the plate before I’m so full I almost feel sick, but Finnick accepts this when I push the plate away. He seems satisfied with the amount I had and nods before taking me by the elbow and guiding me back to the elevator. Standing behind the desk, next to the woman with cat whiskers, is the same peacekeeper from earlier who watches us with narrowed eyes. Finnick gives him a jaunty wave before she shepherds me into the elevator. 

When we reach my floor, he rests a hand on my back, between my shoulders. “It was nice meeting you, Twelve. You’re just as terrible as Haymitch says and I respect that.”

“It was nice meeting you too, Odair,” I tell him. “You’re nowhere near as great as the stories say and I appreciate that.”

I can still hear him laughing even after the elevator doors have shut behind me. 

I wake up in time for breakfast the next morning and, even though Haymitch is glaring at me harshly enough that I know he has heard about my adventures, I manage to eat.


	15. I'm a princess cut from marble, smoother than a stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cara might be prepared for the arena, but she is a far cry from being ready for the interviews.

My morning is first spent with Effie, who is prepared to suffer as she apparently did last year when Katniss was tribute. Katniss is present and sulking about it from where she sits on the couch, watching as Effie prepares herself to teach me how to behave like a civilized human being. 

The first thing we do is posture, which is by first appearance dreadful. I have years spent leaning over tanning vats and crawling through underbrush so that my slouch has become instinctual. But as soon as Effie begins to demand from me the posture of ‘a proper lady’, my time spent in the Capitol comes rushing back. My spine straightens, my chin rises, I maintain the calm arch of an only vaguely interested brow.

“Oh, well … um,” Effie stutters as she sees it. “Well, if you can maintain that, we might make a lady out of you yet.”

Next are the lessons on how to walk in heels _while_ in a long dress. This comes harder to me, since I was 10 the last time Addalise brought me to the Capitol. It was considered lucky if they got me to keep my shoes on. After twenty minutes of walking like a newborn deer (but a newborn deer with _ excellent _posture), Katniss finally speaks up.

“Effie, didn’t Cinna say Cara was only going to wear small kitten heels?” She asks in a voice that is entirely too innocent for me to miss what she did.

Effie, blinking in surprise at her, claps her hands together. “I suppose he did, but this is still a useful skill for Cara to learn.”

Katniss ignores my glare and leans down to pull out a box left under the couch. Pulling off the lid, there sit two small ivory shoes with a thick, short heel and gold trim. “Might be more practical for her to practice in her actual shoes though.”

“Oh, well, I suppose that’s true,” Effie admits and gestures for me to take the box.

Snatching is from Katniss, I keep my eyes narrowed. “Just forgot these for twenty minutes did you?”

Katniss shrugs then stands. “I paid my dues,” she says in the same innocent tone. “ I think I’ll go check on Rory.”

With that, Katniss strolls out of the room in exactly the slouch Effie had been complaining about twenty minutes before. 

I slip on the shoes and manage to stand up straight before I lose it and begin to giggle.

Effie, hands tossed in the air, shakes her head. “I swear, I don’t understand you girls.”

It isn’t long before Effie lets me go, satisfied with my walk and my manners. She sends me off with an affectionate pat on my cheek and a “you could have been a good, polite girl.”

The next part of my training is supposed to be with Haymitch and Peeta, where they’ll be instructing me on how to behave and talk while I’m at the interview. I’m not sure where Katniss has wandered off to. I am guessing she must be as uncomfortable as I am. She knew how to help me with the bow, with the survival of the games. But even without knowing her well, I know charm and charisma are not her forte. 

There is no judgement on my end. They’re not mine either.

They are still with Rory, however, and so I find myself once again left to my own devices. Deciding it is better for me not to try any more exploring of the tower, I settle myself for exploring the roof. 

It takes me a few minutes to figure out where the entrance onto the roof is, but once I do I berate myself for not finding it sooner. The open air lacks the humidity of District 12 summers and the feeling of the sun on my skin feels clean. If I close my eyes I could be anywhere. 

Thoughtlessly, I find my way to the edge of the roof, sitting on the ledge next to the low wall separating me from open air. Suspicious that they would actually allow me such a possible freedom, I lean down to pick up a pubble nudged loose by my foot. I toss it over the edge, only for it to seemingly bounce off an invisible surface and soar back into my hand.

This is how I amuse myself as the sun rises higher into the sky. It is where I am when Peeta finds me. I am so used to Haymitch and Katniss that his open and friendly smile takes me by surprise. On impulse, I stand and drop my handful of pebbles over the edge. They rain down behind me as I step closer to the mentor I’ve probably spent the least time with. “Are you and Haymitch ready for me?” I ask.

Peeta winces and I wonder exactly how their morning went and if _ I _ am ready for whatever mood Haymitch must be in.

“How’s Rory?” I ask, redirecting.

Peeta seems to shake his previous hesitation off well enough because his smile returns. “Nervous. Poor kid seems to be more afraid of the interview than he was of the training sessions.”

“At least the gamemakers don’t expect you to have a conversation,” I say lightly.

“Are you ever going to tell us what you did?” Peeta asks, but there is no pressure in his voice. It feels more like a friend who is offering to let me confide in him. 

My face flushes. “I don’t think I want to talk about it,” I admit. Every time I think about it, I feel sick. “I just wanted to make sure that whatever Rory did, didn’t seem as bad.”

I cross my arms over my chest, trying not to let my nails dig into my shirt. “I don’t know if the others went through with it, but from the conversations in the training center it sounds like we weren’t the only ones who might’ve … acted out.”

Peeta nods. “It’s different this year. I mean don’t get me wrong,” he assures, holding his hands up. “Maybe it is just because I’m standing on a different side. But something is definitely different. The tributes are angrier and the Capitol …” he breaks off.

“What do you mean?” I urge and he looks at me skeptically.

“Well, the Capitol has been watching most of you since you were kids, right? There was one editorial that even got ahold of some baby pictures of you and your grandmother. Joan Tripp is practically a celebrity around here.”

“Really?” I ask skeptically and Peeta nods.

“She’s been around with her grandmother almost every year,” he affirms. “So you’re not just tributes to them. You’re … theirs in a way we weren’t.”

“But it still doesn’t bother them enough to be a problem with the games,” I say dryly.

He gestures for us to head towards the door, back into the tower, and I want to dig my heels in and refuse. I want to stay here in the sun because the next time I see it will be in the arena. But I don’t. I just follow them.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” he says in a far away voice.

Haymitch, to my surprise, is waiting for us in the sitting room. On the screen, the current focus of his attention, is me. Specifically, it is me on Reaping Day.

“Sit,” Haymitch says and I don’t argue. Peeta takes the spot next to me on the couch, but Haymitch stays standing.

He presses play and I have to relive it. It is the original footage - not the severely edited and cut down recap. 

It begins just after I volunteered. The camera flashes around to the shocked faces - Primrose’s, Peeta’s, Mrs. Everdeen’s. It then focuses in on me. 

I don’t know why we’re watching this. My impassive face is almost … derisive as I repeat my statement. In the footage of me walking to the stage, I remain unemotive, calm. Even as I am all but shoved by the peacekeepers, my chin doesn’t lower.

Haymitch presses a few buttons and the next thing we see is, again, me. But this time it is as Rory and I emerge from the training center for the parade. In Cinna’s beautiful dress of smoke, in the light of the setting sun, the aristocratic arch of my expression, I don’t look like me. 

I have never much cared about my looks. It has never been relevant. But here I am awe striking. Perhaps not beautiful in the sense of Katniss or the girl from District One, but something about me here is riveting. 

In both, I realize that part of it is how I am utterly self-contained. I am unaffected by the chaos around me.

Haymitch flashes through some footage from the training center. My calm countenance when I was confronted by Slate. The teasing lilt of my brow at lunch the first day when all my company is laughing. 

What the footage doesn’t show is how incredibly anxious I was during all of that. My calm was a tight hold on the panic that has lived in my gut for as long as I can remember. But the girl Haymitch is showing me is almost … cool. I would be intimidated by her, but I’d want her to like me.

“I think you get the picture,” Haymitch says dryly, the screen disappearing at the click of a button. “The moment you open your mouth you seem more uncomfortable than any tribute I’ve had the misfortune of mentoring. But you’ve got a _ presence _, princess. That’s what we’re going to use.”

“I have literally no idea how to do that,” I tell him and he snorts.

“What Haymitch means,” Peeta says, shooting him a look. “Is that you have already gotten the attention of the Capitol. People are talking about you, they’re asking questions. Everyone wants to know what happened between the last time you were in the Capitol and now. Which means they’re _ already _ going to be anticipating your interview.”

“But we’ve already established I can’t talk,” I say impatiently.

“So keep it short and sweet. You don’t need to be charming. The less you say the better you’ll be,” Haymitch says with a wave of his hand.

“As said, people are already curious about you,” Peeta says, eying Haymitch sharply. “We want to keep them asking those questions.”

They run me through several practice questions and they’re right. The more words I try to give them, the more uncomfortable and nervous I get. My answers come out stilted and awkward. Each time Haymitch grew impatient and Peeta would gently offer suggestions of what I could do when I get nervous.

It occurs to me, not for the first time, how different this is from my old life. Back in 12, days could go by without me speaking to anyone. Occasionally Roe would stop by before school. Usually it would be Tobiah or Arlen stopping by long enough to leave me instructions for the day’s work.

The thought causes a painful clench in the center of my chest which makes me stutter over my answer to Haymitch over what my favorite part of the Capitol is.

Eventually, either my performance is sufficient enough for them to let me go or Haymitch cannot stand to be around me any longer. They leave me alone in the sitting room and I bring up the footage that Haymitch showed me. I don’t play it, but I leave it on the shot of me in the parade. I am regal, fierce, overtaking the scene so that Rory almost fades to the background.

Haymitch and Peeta seem to think this is an advantage to me. Maybe they’re right. I think of the girl from District 12 with chemical burned hands, who knew how to move through hallways without being seen. I could move through a silent room with no one hearing me. It was how I survived. I do not think I want to be her. But looking at the creature on the screen, I am not so sure I want to be her either.

I don’t know who it is that would be left, what version of reality would fill in the gaps left by that girl and the spirit in the chariot. I don’t know that I can afford to be her. But, god, would I like to.


	16. Don't you ever tame your demons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day of the interviews finally arrives and Cara may set in motion a series of events she has no understanding or control over. But she does it on her own terms.

When I wake the next morning, there is a tray of breakfast on my end table and a silk robe hanging over the back of my door. I know immediately that today is going to be a long day. I have barely tucked into my breakfast - simple eggs, fruit, and orange juice that I find myself tearing into ravenously - before my door bursts open.

My prep team greets me with unbridled enthusiasm and they alternate between singing Cinna’s praises and cursing him for restricting their vision. Uncomfortable under their impatient hovering, I swig the last of my juice and am immediately stripped. They generously allow me to slip on my robe, but I am otherwise pulled into a chair in the center of the room and they set to work - chattering happily to me all the way.

It seems that there is not quite as much to do as there was when we first arrived and Octavia bemoans the limitations imposed upon them - there would have been just enough time to make use of the gold feather implants which have been all the rage this season. But they buff my nails and triple check me for any hair which had somehow survived our last encounter, before polishing me with more lotions than I have names for.

It is only after every inch of me has been inspected, moisturized, and declared passable that Flavius reveals the special secret that Cinna has prepared for this day. From seemingly nowhere (I will not ask where he kept it), he pulls out a small chestnut box. Reverently, he hands it to me and I open it with the care their admiration demands.

“It must be in honor of her,” Venia says, misty eyed.

Before I see it, I wonder if they mean Addelise. If perhaps Cinna has given me some tribute to the woman who raised me and whose victory has brought me here. But when the box is open, nestled among the velvet lining is something else entirely.

It takes me a moment to place what I am seeing. They are primroses. Beautiful, silk primroses on delicate pins. They look real and when I stroke one finger down the petals, they are one of the softest things I have ever seen. Their color is a delicate, golden blush and I know they will shimmer beautifully in my own blond hair. 

I can’t explain exactly why there is a sinking feeling in my chest, a strange sense of disappointment and resentment. I am guessing that Cinna must have designed these when he was expecting Primrose to be here and I can’t fault him for not having the time to start from scratch. I can’t even explain to myself what it is that bothers me so much about the sight of these flowers in my hand.

So instead I swallow the lump in my throat and smile at my prep team, exclaiming at how beautiful and perfect they are. How brilliant Cinna is and how wonderful I know they will make me look. This is all they need and the three of them begin sniffling. I am wary, but it seems that they are more in control than the last time and Flavius sets to work pinning my thick hair up in an elaborate updo - in an updo Cinna _ specifically _ instructed him to do. Moving around him and flawlessly in sinc, Venia sets herself to painting my face while Octavia sets to work coating my nails in a soft champagne.

When they have finally finished, they coo over me, patting my cheek and squeezing my hand. Assure me I am the most beautiful tribute they have ever had the privilege to work with.

(How quickly they have forgotten Katniss. I am confident they will just as quickly forget me.)

Holding out a mirror, Flavius allows me to see my hair from all angles and it _ is _exquisite. I would have thought the flowers would get lost in the light honey of my hair, but instead the pale blooms seem to shimmer. The soft colors catch the light at every turn and the complex layer of curls is breathtaking. The makeup Venia did is natural but a little more harsh than I would expect from my hair and nails. The blush, lips, and lids are all a lovely peach, but the contouring is perhaps stronger than I would think. My jaw and cheekbones are accentuated. They make me look older than the primroses in my hair would imply.

Before they leave, Venia stops and takes my hand. She looks unsure, but there is a firm set to her mouth which makes me think they have planned this moment.

“We just wanted to say once more how much of an honor it has been to help you be your most beautiful for these games. We so … admired what you did for Katniss’s sister. It was so … good.”

She nearly chokes on the word, eyes flashing nervously between Flavius and Octavia as if one of them might strike her for even the implication behind those words. But Flavius is nodding, sniffling and Octavia is trying to subtly wipe away her tears with the back of her hand.

“Thank you,” I answer carefully, squeezing her hand. “I appreciate all you’ve done for me.”

At this, Venia nods, sniffles once, and then guides the three of them out the door. I am left sitting in my robe, head feeling heavy with the updo and all my pins, and still unable to place the sense of loss I feel.

Until Cinna comes with my dress, there is nothing much I can do but wait. I don’t especially want to wander from my room in this robe nor do I want to risk the wrath of my prep team by messing up my hair with other clothes. So instead I content myself with my window, flashing between scenes of Panem until I finally just settle upon the view of the Capitol. It is what I am still watching when lunch is eventually brought to me. I eat without much thought, watching the crowd of ants in the street below.

I have just finished when there is a gentle knock on my door.

“Come in,” I call, turning in the chair I had pulled to my window.

Cinna enters with his back to me, seeming to lug a garment bag that is bigger than he is. When he turns, I eye the enormous black mass with a wary gaze.

“Do you trust me?” He asks with a smile.

Reluctantly, perhaps fearfully, I do. 

He seems to read this in my expression, because he begins to unzip the bag and all I see is a mass of glistening cream tulle. The feeling in my chest from the primroses is back.

“I had to make some adjustments,” he explains, flaring out the skirt of the dress. “It is adapted from the plans I had for Prim, but I think I’ve found something that will make a statement for you.”

I wordlessly nod, trying to ignore the tightness in my throat. The soft cap sleeves and the princess skirt are enchanting. It is easily the most beautiful item of clothing I have ever seen in my life, but it feels as wrong as the soft flowers did when I first saw them.

“Trust me one more time, Cara,” he says gently. “Will you close your eyes while I get you into this dress?”

“Okay,” I say softly. Even if I don’t get it, I trust that Cinna’s choice of dress for me is what will help me the most. I close my eyes.

With his gentle, guiding hands, I realize the dress is certainly more complex than I first thought. The skirt seems to be over a jumpsuit, perhaps detachable. It is somewhat hazardous to be stepping in blind, but Cinna gently instructs me until he is lacing up the corset back of this beautiful dress.

With a hand on my elbow, he walks me towards where I know the full length mirror is. 

“Okay,” he says. “Open your eyes.”

I do as he says and before me I stand in the most stunning thing I have ever seen. As I turn this way and that, the shimmer of the chiffon and tulle catches the light, sparkling with the flowers in my hair.

On me, it is a beautiful dress. But I can easily imagine Primrose Everdeen in this get up. She would look ethereal, fairylike. It would become her in a way this look does not become me.

I can’t full disguise the confusion in my expression when I turn to Cinna. 

He takes my hand and squeezes. “Sometime before the end of the interview, stand and offer to twirl for the audience. Katniss did last time, they’ll probably be expecting something similar for your dress. They might even ask.”

“What will happen?” I ask, frowning. I’m not sure I am quite brave enough to have a dress catch _ fire _ the way Katniss’s did.

“Do you trust me?” He asks for the third time.

And the thing is? I do.

Cinna sits with me for awhile, holding my hand and chatting with me. It helps calm my nerves. He is somehow easier to talk to than anyone else I’ve ever meet. I don’t feel uncomfortable or afraid with him. My words just come more easily.

Effie knocks to let us know than we need to depart in ten minutes and immediately my hand freezes under Cinna’s.

He recognizes this and his thumb rubs soothing circles across my knuckles.

“I can’t do this,” I choke, looking at him with wide eyes. My throat feels like it is constricting and the room begins to feel hot.

“Yes, you can,” Cinna says, taking my other hand from where it is squeezing into the arm of my chair. 

“No, I’m not like Katniss!” I protest. “I’m not … charming like she was in her interviews. I get scared when I talk to _ Effie _ too much.”

Cinna’s eyes remain unfailingly kind, but I almost swear that I see a flicker of amusement in them too. “Are you scared when you’re talking to me?”

“Well, no,” I admit. “But I won’t be talking to you. I’ll freeze up and get … clunky. Like I always do.”

“If you ever feel like you’re going to freeze,” he says, squeezing both my hands, “just look at me and act like I’m the one asking you the question. You don’t have to pretend or be anything. Just act like you’re talking to me.”

Taking a shaky breath, I force air into my lungs. I don’t feel completely better, but the room doesn’t feel like it’s spinning.

“I know this is all unfair,” Cinna says, going back to rubbing soothing circles on the back of my hands. “But you have already proven how strong you are to me and to all of Panem. Those people out there? They don’t mean anything. You don’t have to prove anything to them. You’ve already shown who you are and you are going to get through this. And I’ll be right there with you.”

It is that promise that finally pushes through the haze of my panic. I nod, trying to reign in the watering of my eyes. I don’t want to ruin Venia’s artistry. When Cinna smiles now, I smile in return. When Effie knocks a few moments later to fetch me, I walk out on steadier feet.

Everyone is waiting for us by the elevators when we arrive. The circumference of my dress is so wide that both Effie and Cinna have to walk a couple feet apart from me or risk stepping on my dress. It is this dress that earns looks from everyone except for Effie, who seems to think nothing of my look - except maybe that it is not as outlandish or fashionable or whatever as Capitol style usually is. Even Peeta has to recover the look of confusion on his face.

“Glad you finally decided to join us, Princess,” Haymitch grunts after a moment, but I suspect his statement is more an attempt to salvage the awkward moment that passed between us all.

As if to contradict the oddity of my look even more, Rory wears a simple charcoal grey suit. It makes him look dashing, older. I can easily envision the man he will grow up to be should he make it out of this. Out of anyone (besides Effie, of course), Rory seems to be the most unaffected by my appearance. Maybe it is because he is more caught in his own nerves. As we step into the elevators, I watch him take several deep breaths and settle into the expression I am recognizing more and more as his ‘Gale face’.

It quickly becomes apparent that we will not all fit in addition to my dress and Katniss quickly volunteers to take the next elevator with Peeta, Portia, and Cinna.

It could hardly be said that I am left alone with Haymitch. Rory stands beside me and Effie is fretting about whether we will be the last district to arrive. But there still seems to be so much hanging unsaid in the air between us, with neither Effie nor Rory aware of the tension. He is angry, I can tell. But with the way he stares at the wall ahead of us and the fixed set of his jaw, I do not think that is all there is. But it remains still unsaid when the elevator doors open.

As Effie feared, we are the last to arrive. But our entrance certainly doesn’t go unnoticed. Across the room, Slate eyes my dress and turns away with a snort. I can’t hear what he said to Satin, but I’m sure I can assume an approximation of it.

“What did Cinna put you in?” Kol asks as soon as he sees me. Immediately, I feel defensive of my stylist.

“He had to adapt what he designed for Primrose,” I snip, but even as I say it I know it can’t be entirely true. As I meet Kol and Joan’s eyes, I know they realize it too.

“You look childish,” the girl from District two snorts, before flouncing to her place in her dark blue dress of glistening silk. It shows off the figure of a woman older than her years. It is seductive; certainly nothing like my own look.

But I don’t believe her when she says I look childish, and I can see Joan shaking her head in confusion. “You look like …” She breaks off, seeming unable to explain what exactly it is that I look like.

“You look like an older Prim,” Rory says from where he had hidden himself, partially behind me. 

I turn to look at him in surprise, but also realizing he is right. It also makes me realize what it is that has been bothering me all day. 

When I saw those flowers, it stung because I thought I had been seen as myself. That even in everything that had been happening, the Capitol had not succeeded in stripping from me the essentials of who I am. That Cinna had seen that. In Primrose’s dress, with her flowers in my hair, I felt like that much had been pulled from me. I was a decoy Primrose Everdeen. A faulty reprint when they couldn’t have the real thing.

Anger stings in my chest. I am _ not _ Primrose. I am not _Katniss_. Every step I have taken since I took my place has been set in comparison to those two. I admire Katniss’s strength. I admire Primrose’s intelligence and courage. But I am _ Cara Lynnwood _ , Addelise Lynnwood’s granddaughter and I will _ never _ be either of the Everdeen sisters no matter how the Capitol tries to frame me as such.

There is no time to ruminate on this before we are hurried to our places on the stage. With the lights shining on us and catching on the brilliant lavender hue of Caesar Flickerman’s hair, I almost feel dizzy. But I take a focusing breath, look out over the audience, and find Cinna where he sits with the rest of the District Twelve team. He gives me a small thumbs up and I smile, in spite of everything. It isn’t much, but my smile is there.

I don’t pay much attention to his opening, but soon enough Satin and Paris have both been in the chair. They both eagerly talked about Augustus Braun. Their fond memories of him. His love for the Capitol. Their sadness that they won’t have the chance to both share it with him.

At this, I have to keep my jaw from dropping and sympathetic murmurs ripple through the audience. The girl from District Two, Shimmer, is not too different. She tells jokes about her mother’s misadventures with her fashion career in the Capitol, reminisces about the time she had a young Shimmer model for her fall line. About how the Capitol had always felt like a second home to her growing up.

Slate is more of what I would expect from a career. He talks about his eagerness to get to the arena, to live up to his legacy. But even he stops to dwell on his uncle and when he mentions Cato’s name, a rumble passes through the audience. Many had rooted for Slate’s cousin in the last games.

Three is next and Dee shyly remembers hiding behind her grandmother’s skirts once, when she was very small, during one of her last interviews with Caesar Flickerman. Caesar, regardless of whether it is true or not, instantly remembers and the two share witty banter about which of the other tributes have big enough skirts for him to hide behind.

Lafferty talks about working with his uncle, the plans they had for the expanding technology in the Capitol. It is perhaps not as heartwarming as Dee’s interview, but there are certainly nods and murmurs at some of the familiar things discussed.

It is a theme that passes through the tributes, one district at a time, until Rory and I are exchanging looks. I do not know if this was planned or not. But with each tribute more and more unease seems to move through the crowd.

The truth everyone here on this stage knows is that a lot of us were _always_ going to be here. The family members of previous victors always made for good TV and the Capitol citizens love being able to root for an old favorite. I don’t understand what is different now. Except perhaps now they are having a harder time deciding who to root for. Almost everyone here has a name, if not a face they recognize. We are more children to them than perhaps any other game before.

Kol is every bit as charismatic as I expected him to be. He reminds me of Finnick in his mannerisms and I wonder if they spent much time together before these games. He is certainly almost as handsome, with his broad shoulders, dark honey skin, and chocolate curls. He is related to two victors, one more recent than the other; and so he has many stories to tell. But he also makes jokes about playing in the Capitol as a kid. When Caesar asks if he has anyone special waiting for him at home, he shakes his head and laughs.

“But,” he says with a mischievous wink, “I always did think Cara Lynnwood was pretty cute when I was running around pulling her pigtails.”

I immediately cover my face with my hands and I know I am blushing. The audience meanwhile is caught up between aws, good humored tittering, and sighs that sound almost _ sad _.

Joan is all charm and humor, easily establishing rapport with Flickerman as she leans in to admit to some of the mischief she used to get up to in the Capitol. She pretends to whisper, like we are all in one some secret and she makes the audience promise not to tell. My hand goes to my mouth when she throws a wink my way and tells about the time I got her to help me pour vinegar into all the drinks at my grandmother’s Victor Anniversary tour.

The audience is laughing at our expense - especially mine as Caesar cracks jokes about my being the troublemaker. But then Joan’s expression turns sorrowful.

“I’m just sorry,” she says softly. “I have so many memories of growing up here with you. Whatever happens, it just hurts to know it will never be that way again.”

At this, the audience loses it. Joan was raised by her grandmother and had no one else to take care of her - the same as me - and so she spent more time in the Capitol eye than was normal even for someone who was in a victor’s family. She is beloved in a way that non-victors usually aren’t - with only the occasional exceptions of those like Primrose.

It takes Caesar a moment to get the interviews back on track, but he manages. It is easier with the next few. Most are tributes whose victors were less known or beloved than the previous ones. They pass by mostly uneventfully.

I almost don’t realize it is my turn until the District 11 boy is settled in his seat. I stand, legs feeling hollow and my face too hot. But I smile for Caesar and the audience, who all cheer for me. I think this must be in part because of what Kol and Joan did.

Caesar stands to greet me, kissing both of my cheeks and then urges me to take my seat.

“Cara Lynnwood,” he says in a voice that suggests he finds me utterly fascinated. “Can I just say that you look absolutely marvelous tonight - doesn’t she look marvelous?” He turns to the audience, who all cheer obligingly.

“Thank you, Caesar,” I say, as I settle with one ankle tucked behind the other. “It’s been a long time since I was all dolled up for the Capitol.”

“Yes, you were raised by your grandmother, Addelise Lynnwood, victor of the 37th Hunger Games. She was a fascinating woman,” he says, with his voice low and sympathetic. “How long as it been since you were last with us?”

“Oh, not since I was ten,” I assure him with a hand on the arm of his chair. “I won’t be _ too _ offended if you can’t remember me.”

“Nonsense,” he protests good naturedly. “A girl like you is unforgettable.” He raises his eyebrow to the audience, looking for them to back him up and they cheer. “Besides, it sounds like _ you _ got up to some memorable mischief of your own. Drive you out did they?”

“Not quite,” I laugh softly. “After my grandmother’s passing, I lived with my father’s extended family. There was no one else to bring me here.”

At this, Caesar’s sympathetic gaze falls to my 'mutilated' left hand (as Templesmith has called it), which rests on my knee. “I do have to ask. Your score was … unsual to say the least. I don’t think we have ever seen a 1 before.” He looks out to the audience for their take and I hear their murmurs of agreement. “Is this a strategy?”

“All I will say, Caesar,” I say in a fierce but gentle tone, “is that I think we should have all learned by now to never underestimate the women of District Twelve.”

At this, I am met with ferocious cheers. I look out into the audience, but my eyes don’t catch on Cinna. They rest on Katniss, whose eyes are flashing with a fierce anger. But I do not think it is at me. Not anymore.

“Too true, Cara,” Caesar agrees in a passionate voice. “I do want to address one last elephant in the room - we all do, I’m sure,” he says, with his arm spread out to the audience. “Primrose Everdeen.”

At this, the murmurs are back and I nod.

“What was going through your mind when you volunteered?” Caesar urges.

“I thought that Primrose Everdeen deserved to be at her sister’s wedding,” I say truthfully and the murmurs grow more distressed. I glance at Cinna and he nods to me, expression solemn. So I turn back to Caesar. “This dress was actually originally designed for her. Would you like to see.”

Immediately Caesar is saying “yes, yes!” while the crowd urges me on with cheers. So i stand, with my arms spread out beside me and twirl. But as I twirl and my dress fans out, I begin to smoke. Despite the strike of nerves in my heart, I keep twirling until the smoke has risen up all around me and I hear strange popping noises. The some has caused the flowers to wither andI can feel pins falling out of my hair.

When the smoke finally dies down, my hair tumbles past my shoulders and I stop, breathlessly. I almost think I am going to stumble and Caesar steps towards me with his hands raised, but I keep my footing.

I see myself in the screens. I am breathless, but I look fierce. My hair is wild, retaining some of the curl from where it was pinned. My dress went up in smoke and in its place is a simple black bodysuit, with cap sleeves. A half skirt fans out in a train behind me, more like a cape. The corset bodice looks almost more like armor now. The texture of the fabric just barely catches the light. I am coal; unlit, unforgiving.

I look strong, wild. The girlish, soft image that had not suited me is gone. In its place is a version of me I did not know existed. It should not exist, I realize. But it does and I am here.

I was not created to be Primrose Everdeen. I am the version of Cara Lynnwood who was born from the dust and smoke the Capitol left behind.

“Incredible,” Caesar murmurs.

I look out at Cinna and even though I know it is bold and stupid and reckless, I speak directly to him. “I was thinking that it was wrong and there was something in my power to change it. So I did what I could do.”

I do not miss Caesar’s sharp intake of breath, or the echoes of it in others. I see Cinna’s fiercely proud expression. When my gaze moves, it catches on Katniss. She looks angry and afraid. But somehow it also feels like the way Cinna looks at me.

Haymitch’s head is hanging down. A fist clenched beside him. He is exasperated and angry when he looks up as well. But I don’t miss the half smirk. 

Slowly the dead silence rises into murmurs and then into shouts. I do not know if it is in support of me or if they are crying for my head. Caesar tries to calm them, to little affect. So he tries to redirect by thanking me, kissing me on both my cheeks again, and directing me back to my seat. When I look at the other tributes, I see various expressions. Slate looks murderous, which is nothing new. But Joan is grinning ear to ear and Lafferty nods to me. Kol looks proud and he raises his fist, ever so slightly to me. 

The crowd quiets when Rory is finally seated. He looks nervous, but there is still that look in his eyes that reminds me of Gale. It was the one he wore before the private sessions. I do not try to hope he will do the smart thing. I have lost all right to cast judgement, and surely by now he can sink no lower than me.

After a few jokes about how his recent celebrity status feels, Caesar unsurprisingly asks about his ‘cousins’ upcoming nuptials.

Rory admits to being rather oblivious about the whole thing, not really getting the whole deal about dresses and parties. He calls out “Sorry, Katniss,” to her in the audience. The cameras all pan to where she sits, hiding her face in her hands. The audience laughs while Peeta rubs her back good naturedly. But I am betting she is trying to hide the expression of anger still on her face.

“And you’re going to be there to see it?” Caesar asks, all humor gone from his voice.

“I’m going to do my best,” he answers in an honest, even tone. “I just wish, after everything she has done for our family, both Cara and I could be there to support her. I know Prim would want it.”

At this, Caesar loses his audience again. He does not get it back before Rory’s time runs out and he returns to his place by me. To my surprise, as we stand, Rory takes my hand with an expression of fierce solidarity. When I turn, I see Joan copy the gesture to take hold of Kol’s hand. One by one, until even Slate relents; until we are all one united front.

Most of us knew we would someday be here. But in this moment we are all condemning that truth together.

Then the lights shut off and plunge us into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter I've written, but I also think my favorite. I want for us to get here about three chapters ago, but I think there were a few things needed to happen before Cara was ready for this. The next chapter will be the start of the games.


	17. With all at stake and so it begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cara is out of time. So it begins.

There is no time to find Joan or Kol. To make sense of what is happening. I release the 11 boy’s hand - Rye, I remember - and immediately grab hold of Rory, keeping my hand on his shoulder so I do not lose him. We can hear the sounds of Capitol citizens in the audience, exclaiming and confused. But we are shoved and herded towards the elevator, with Rory and I not allowed to accompany anyone else.

I only release my tight grip on him when we are alone, stepping away with my arms crossed over my chest. I feel much lighter without the weight of Primrose’s gown but my wild hair keeps flying in my face. It makes me want to rip it out. Rory is rubbing his shoulder where I gripped it and I wonder if I had used too much force in my attempt to ensure we were not separated. We spend the ride in silence until we open out onto our floor.

We are the first to make it back; I can only assume that the others had to fight their way through the crowd. The lights are dimmed. Perhaps we were not expected back so soon. Rory and I stand in the front entryway, staring at each other. He looks as shocked and confused as I feel.

“This is it,” he says, blinking at me. He is so tall and in the poor lighting he looks older than he is. It is just the fragile sound in his voice that betrays how much of a kid he really is.

“Haymitch, Peeta, and Katniss will be back in a few moments and I’m sure they’ll have instructions for us,” I say, struggling to keep my voice calm. “After we go to bed, I probably won’t see you again. Not until the arena. When we get there, the only thing you should worry about is getting out. If you have our allies with you, great. But if you have to abandon everyone - including me - you get yourself out, you get yourself to cover, and you get water. Do you understand me?”

“What about you?” He frowns. “Are you going to the cornucopia?” 

“The majority of deaths happen at the bloodbath. I’m not fast enough of a runner to get in and out in time,” I dismiss. “So I’ll try to find you. But the first thing _ you _ do is run.”

He doesn’t seem comfortable with this, but the elevator doors open before he can discuss it any further. 

Our entourage is absent our stylists and Effie is making up for their absence by railing against the officials who had treated us so poorly.

“I have never in my life seen such terrible manners at the interviews. Why it was almost as bad as your victory tour,” she says, gesturing at Katniss and Peeta. “They as good as threw Cinna and Portia out of the building and, I _ swear _ , I will have _ bruises _ from where that man gripped me. We were _ going _.”

Peeta is agreeing with her in a soothing voice, trying to calm her while Katniss ignores everything and walks straight to Rory. He is almost comically shocked when she wraps him in a tight hug. “You’re both idiots and your brother is going to kill you when all of this is done.”

She is blushing when she pushes away, however, and retreats back to Peeta’s side.

“I’m so sorry you were treated that way, Effie,” I say, softly interrupting her continued tirade to Peeta. “That must have been very frightening for you.”

Sniffing, she steps forward and takes my hands between hers. 

“Thank you, dear,” she sniffs, patting my hand. “I’m going to send in a _ very _ strongly worded complaint before I go to bed for the evening.”

She starts to step away, but stops. Eyes red, she clumsily pats my cheek and squeezes Rory’s arm. “It is been an honor to sponsor you as tributes.”

Then she turns away and leaves us with our mentors. I finally bring myself to look at Haymitch, who is unreadable.

“I’m not going to tell you about how stupid the both of you are, because you already know,” he says. “Once you go to bed, you won’t see us again before the games. Your stylist will come get you in the morning. In the arena, when the gong sounds, clear out. Get water.”

“What do we do about weapons?” Rory asks, gaze flicking to me.

“That’s not a problem for the first day,” Katniss says firmly. “You’re more likely to die from thirst or exposure early on. So get out, get water.”

“You’ve both got strong survival skills,” Peeta nods. “That will help more than weapons.”

“Anything else?” I ask.

“Stay alive.” Haymitch shakes his head. “Get some sleep.”

“You’ve got a big, big, big day.” Katniss says dryly and I give an inelegant snort.

We’ve just started to head our separate ways when Haymitch speaks.

“Cara.”

Peeta squeezes my shoulder as he passes. Reluctantly, I turn towards my old neighbor, keeping my chin raised.

He walks forward until he is only a couple feet from me. “I get that you’re a damn idiot with a martyr complex who doesn’t listen to anyone.”

“Thanks,” I mumble.

“Shut up,” he says. “But listen to this, princess. I was saying that to you too. Stay alive. I don’t care what you _think_ _you_ _know_. You go into that arena and you look after the kid as much as you want. But do as I say and _stay_ _alive_.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” I answer, gritting my teeth.

“You don’t know how it works, princess,” he snaps. “You’ve never been in that arena before. So listen to your mentors for once in this whole _goddamn _ ordeal and do as I say.”

I stare at him, feeling confused, angry, and disappointed. I don’t have any promises I can make him. If I stay alive, it means I’ve failed in the one thing I have set out to do. But I will, for as long as I can until my time is up. So I give Haymitch the only thing I can give him.

“Okay,” I tell him. "I'll try."

He opens up his mouth and then closes it, like he had been prepared to argue this point further. His fist opens and closes at his side, trembling slightly, and I wonder how long it has been since he had a drink.

“Addelise would be proud of you,” he finally grunts after a moment of quiet. “She’d be furious. But she’d be proud.”

He knew her longer than I ever did. It seems wrong, because of all the memories I have of Addelise where she is tinged with the childish sense of _ possession _. But Haymitch knew her too. He must have mattered to her to.

“She’d be proud of you too,” I tell him. “Furious, but proud.

At this, Haymitch throws his head back and laughs.

I shake my hair out of my face, blinking to fight down the stinging of my eyes. But as I step towards the hall and my room, I stop for a moment.

“And Haymitch, you too.”

“What?” He asks and I can hear his frown.

“Stay alive,” I say and then quicken my steps towards my room.

I don’t immediately crawl into bed. I first go to the window and look out over the view of the Capitol. The street below us is packed. I can’t make out anything except the roiling motion of people. Are they celebrating? Placing bets on who will die first? I want to be angry, to hate them. But when I reach for it, there is an absence in my chest. 

It is that absence that pulls me into bed and under the covers. It feels like a lifetime since I was in Twelve and I expect the insomnia that has been plaguing me to continue. But I feel strangely calm. The time in the training center with the other tributes, the interviews, the catering to the Capitol. All of that is over. By tomorrow, my only concern will be survival. 

This part is no stranger to me. This old friend is someone I know too well to fully fear.

But still, I start counting down from 100 - a strategy I have always used to quiet the voice of my anxieties before I sleep. I’m not sure, but I think I am gone before thirty.

This time in my dreams, I am neither chased nor do the chasing. I am out in the woods, in some surreal hour between sunset and nightfall where the colors red and purple are too vivid to be real. I sit on the rocks by the creek, the one where I had bathed the morning of reaping. The rocks are bigger than I remember, my feet can just barely skim the top of the water and the ripples cast out in those same striking crimson and violet hues. 

I realize that there is someone sitting next to me and I look up. It is a boy, who is perhaps too old to be called a boy. He has dark hair and serious eyes and I realize I have something of his. I move to grab for the ring around my neck and panic when I realize it isn’t there.

“It’s okay,” he says, holding up a hand. “You’ll find it later.”

“I will?” I ask and he just goes back to staring at the too-scarlet sky. 

“I feel like there’s some big secret that everyone knows but me,” I tell him and he shrugs.

“Maybe,” he says. “But maybe you just never listened. You’re dreaming about me.”

“What do you mean?” I frown.

“Why am I important to you enough to dream about?” He asks.

“You’re not,” I shake my head. “I’ve only met you twice.”

“Until you started dying in the games, you’d never talked to anyone that much,” he says. “I shouldn’t be important, but I am. That’s why you don’t know.”

“You’re nothing like my other dreams,” I accuse.

“I’m not?” He frowns then shrugs it off. “We can just sit here then. You’ll find my ring in the morning.”

So we sit beside each other in silence, watching the swirling two-toned sky.

The colors disappear when Cinna wakes me up. I can’t remember much of what I was dreaming of, except a strange vivid purple and a sense that something is missing.

Cinna guides me into a simple white shift, but instead of leading me out of the room he guides me to a chair he has set in front of the mirror. It sits on a plastic tarp and I turn to him in confusion.

“I thought you hair might be giving you anxiety,” he explains in a voice just above a whisper.

“How did you know?” I blink.

“A good stylist never reveals their secrets,” he winks, and then helps me into the chair. He produces a pair of small scissors. “You ready?”

I take a shaky breath and nod. Slowly, steadily, the long waves of blond hair fall away around me. The cut is short, made shorter by the way my hair tightens into tighter curls with the loss of the weight. Cinna cuts until my hair is as short as Rory’s - or seems so, I know it would be longer if it was wet. 

It isn’t the most artful cut; born out of practicality and short on time. But he did leave the sides shorter and the tight curls on the top of my head leave my high cheekbones and bright grey eyes on sharper display. It is jarring, perhaps in part because I have never been without the weight of hair upon my head. But no one will be able to take hold of my hair or use it to drag me back.

“Thank you,” I tell him and he smiles, brushing hair off my shoulders.

“We’ve got a hovercraft to catch,” he says and I know it is time. 

He brings me to the roof and within seconds a hovercraft appears as if out of thin air. A ladder drops and Cinna gestures me forward. As soon as my hands and feet are both on, something comes over me and I am frozen. My heart rate naturally begins to gallop in my chest and I am sure if I could move I would be breathing faster.

“It will just be a moment,” Cinna calls up after me. I can barely hear him, but it does manage to calm me a little. It lifts me safely into the hovercraft, but instead of releasing me immediately it holds me in place while a Capitol woman approaches me with a needle.

“This is just your tracker, Cara. The stiller you are the more efficiently I can place it.”

I would like to snort and tell her something rude, but I am incapable of budging while she injects it into my forearm. It stings as it sinks deep into the tissue, but I am angrier at its purpose than the pain. 

At the very least, the ladder then releases me. The attendant leaves while Cinna is brought up and then we are both guided by an Avox to a room for breakfast. I don’t want to eat anything, but I can hear Finnick’s caustic voice in my head so I instead take in as much as I can. Afterwards I focus on drinking water, remembering last year’s games when thirst nearly killed Katniss.

It is maybe half an hour before we arrive and I am led into the underground area where I will wait until I am out of time. Once in my launch room, I shower, brush my teeth, and run my hands through my newly cropped hair. There is nothing to do with it, which is both freeing and nerve wracking in that I cannot fill time with it.

When I am ready, Cinna helps me into the outfit they have planned for this arena. Simple undergarments. A tight blue jumpsuit that looks surprisingly sheer with a zipper down the front. Something about the material feels familiar from my childhood, but I can’t place it. A thick padded belt with shiny purple plastic. Light weight, rubber soled shoes.

I look at Cinna curiously, wondering what he thinks, but he shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” he frowns, then pulls Gale’s necklace from where he had been keeping it and affixes it around me neck. I tuck it so the ring is safe underneath the tight fabric of my jumpsuit.

“Whose is it?” He asks curiously.

My tongue feels heavy when I don’t have an answer. I don’t know whose Gale Hawthorne is to me. 

“It’s Rory’s brother’s,” I tell him. “He gave it to me before we left. For if I ever need him to listen to me.”

A look I can’t read passes over Cinna’s face. He presses a hand to me cheek and a kiss to the top of my head. “You’re a good person, Cara Lynnwood. Whatever happens in the arena, it won’t change that.”

“Everything’s going to change,” I tell him, feeling the knot in my throat.

He takes my hand and guides me to the couch. He pours out a glass of water for me from a pitcher and then sits beside me, rubbing circles on my hand with his thumb while I drink.

Something about Cinna makes me be honest, so when I look up to see his kind expression I blurt the truth that I’ve yet to say out loud.

“I don’t want to die.”

“You are a survivor, Cara,” he says firmly. “I believed in Katniss last year and I was right. This year, I believe in you.”

If I were the good person Cinna thinks I am, I would remind myself that I am here so that Rory can live. But for a few selfish moments, I imagine a world where I do survive this. Where I go back to Twelve and live a quiet life. Maybe I pay for Roe to get more schooling. He can become a teacher or something, be better than what Tobiah will ever allow him to be.

I think about quiet mornings drinking tea. Maybe I’ll start playing the piano again. I do not think about how much there is about that reality that I could never live with, and instead just try to remember the chords I used to know. This is how we sit, Cinna holding my hand and I thinking about music notes, until the female voice speaks to let us know it is time.

He helps me stand and I swallow down my heart in my throat. I go to stand on the metal plate and hold both his hands tighter in mine. He does not protest, but looks at me with calm and steady eyes.

“You are going to take the world by storm, Cara Lynnwood. Mark my words,” he promises. “I will see you on the other side.”

I take that statement and I bury it in my heart as the glass chute slides down, eventually forcing me to drop his hands. I close my eyes, breathe, and when I open them I have the layer of composure I did in the parade. My chin is high, my back is straight. I look calm. In control.

Cinna smiles. His hand is up in a goodbye as the cylinder begins to rise. For a few seconds, I am in darkness before I am suddenly overwhelmed by harsh brightness. As my eyes adjust, I look around to see the ground roiling beneath me. Blue waves lap at the toes of my shoes. And I realize - I am surrounded by water.

The thought hits me and I allow myself to hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Realized after this chapter that in Catching Fire Effie was also sent away, but I decided to keep it anyways. We're pretty far AU already. As a heads up, we will be bumped up to a mature rating next chapter due to violence.
> 
> This whole fic began with my thinking about Cinna's death and how it wouldn't have happened if it had been any tribute but Katniss. He never designs the Mockingjay wedding dress and Snow won't waste his death without using it against Katniss. Everything about this fic came about from my simple wish for Cinna to have lived. 
> 
> So the heart of this all a Cinna-lives au
> 
> Comments and kudos are thanks for Cinna's life


	18. Red dawn rises like an early warning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the 75th Hunger Games

“Ladies and gentleman, let the seventy-fifth Hunger Games begin!”

Claudius Templesmith’s voice sounds but I tune it out. I have one minute to get my bearings. I know what I said to Rory - to get out and get to water. I can only assume that the water at my feet isn’t drinkable - saltwater perhaps? I crouch to dip my hands in the water brushing against my shoes and touch it to my tongue. Saltwater.

I focus on my surroundings. The water is a broad expanse around me, set under a soft pink sky. The sun beats down on my newly exposed neck and seeks to blind me by reflecting off the water. There are no boats, no driftwood, nothing to cling to. Then there is the golden cornucopia, perhaps forty yards from me. What I think might be a circular island is quickly revealed to have thin strips of land radiating out. Looking at the half I can see, I estimate twelve. It makes sense, with 24 tributes. Between each spoke is an equidistant mass of water. I share mine with the District Eight boy - perhaps 15 at the oldest and looking at the water around us with an expression of horror.

Beyond the cornucopia I can see a narrow beach and greenery beyond. But I cannot see Rory anywhere. 

Knowing I have only seconds left, my rational side tells me to prepare to run for the beach, to sprint to the other side to try to find him. But I look around at the shaking Eight boy and a shell-shocked kid from nine on my other side, and I realize how distinct my advantage here is. I am no swimmer from District Four, but I have spent years swimming in the small river that runs through the distant woods outside District Twelve. How many others will have that experience? 

Even though a voice inside me is screaming that finding Rory is my first priority, I make my decision and prepare myself. When the gong sounds, I dive to my left - body cleanly cutting into the water - and start swimming for the spoke nearest to me. The waters are choppier than I am used to, but I am accustomed to swimming with and against a stronger current. I feel oddly light and I able to swim more smoothly and quickly than I had expected. In far less time than I had dared hope, I am pulling myself onto the spoke and scrambling to my feet. My view of all the tributes is impeded by the golden horn, but so far I see no one else and I take off sprinting. 

This year everything is piled at the gaping maw of the cornucopia. My feet are flying over the ground and I can see the weapons piled everywhere. I will not dally. I will grab what I need and run - be gone perhaps before most of the tributes have even made it to land. 

My main goal is throwing knives but the first thing within reach is a golden bow and a sheath of arrows. I sling it over my back - I am proficient enough, but I am more concerned with ensuring no one else can hunt us from afar. But when I pull it free, my eyes light up at the sight of what is beneath it. A belt lined with throwing knives. I have just yanked it free when I hear the sound of someone behind.

I whirl, pulling a knife free and preparing myself to throw it, when I spot Kol - maybe ten feet away and dripping water. He has a trident in one hand, a net in the other. The self-assured, calculating look in his eyes reminds me of Finnick.

“You can swim,” he observes.

“I’m a quick learner,” I answer. 

“I can see that,” he nods, eyeing the knife that I have not fully lowered. “Got a new look?"

“Felt like a change," I say. "You must be liking the arena so far.” It was practically designed for him, after all. District Four has an advantage that no other district has. There was nothing in the training center to prepare for this. No chance to learn. You either came here knowing, figure it out, or drown. 

We are sizing each other up when I spot movement. It is Penn, who has just made it to the mouth of the horn, clearly chasing after Kol. But she doesn’t see behind her, where Satin has managed to get her hands on a knife of her own. I don’t blink. I throw the knife in my hand and Kol only has the chance to raise his trident, eyes wide in alarm, before my knife plants itself directly between Satin’s eyes. Penn screams when she sees the knife flying towards her, but she falls over herself when she is sprayed by Satin’s blood.

Kol recovered the quickest, grabbing Penn up while I sprint forward - there’s no time to think about what I’ve just done. I bite down the bile in my throat and yank the knife free, trying to imagine she is just like the deer I have brought down at home. Then I pull away the dagger she still had clutched in her hand when she died. I jam the throwing knife back in the belt as I attach it to my waist, not worrying about the blood and gore that must still be on it. 

“Duck,” Kol commands as I start to stand. I do as he says and feel my hair ruffled by the movement of him throwing his trident. I hear the wet thud of it making contact and stand, turning to see the burly boy from District Six fall to his knees. 

I look around us as Kol retrieves his trident. Penn hovers uncertainly at my side and I hand her the larger knife I had taken from Satin. 

“Stab first, question later,” I tell her. 

Looking out, my bones turn to ice. A furious Slate has just made it to one of the spokes of land and is eyeing me with a hatred I have never seen before. One spoke over, Paris stumbles to a stop as he recognizes the body at my feet. He looks up at me and roars before taking off again. 

“Anything good?” I ask Kol.

“All weapons,” he says. “Unless there’s something else you need, I say we clear out.”

“I won’t argue there,” I tell him.

Shimmer, from District Two, has made it to the same spoke as Paris and the two are getting closer than I feel comfortable with. Not wanting to waste any knives I have no hope of retrieving, I swing the bow off my back and notch an arrow. I mentally run through Katniss’s instructions, but in my rush my aim isn’t true

It  _ does _ however impale itself into Paris’s foot - albeit not the gut shot I had intended it to be. He goes down with a scream of pain that makes Penn jump about a foot in the air. When his step forward fails and he crashes to the ground, he foolishly pulls the arrow free and rolls into the water. 

Kol comes to stand on Penn's other side, evaluating our best course of action when another figure stumbles around the side of the the cornucopia. Instantly, three weapons face them - even if the center knife is trembling. 

A water-logged and gasping Lafferty stumbles into view, raising his hands when he sees us. I lower my bow and he shoots a look at Kol. 

“I’ve got to find something,” he tells him and Kol nods.

I swear under my breath as Lafferty dives into the piles of weapons. I don’t know what speciality item he is trying to arm himself with, but we don’t have time. I fire off another arrow in Slate’s direction. It would have landed, except he dives into the water himself. 

Behind us, Lafferty makes an excited exclamation. Shimmer is only perhaps ten yards away now and looking furious. “Time to go,” I snap, as Lafferty comes level with us.

“I’ll cover,” Kol offers pushing Penn towards me and gesturing us to run towards the clear spoke of land to our right. I don’t question him, slinging my bow over my back and grabbing a knife for each hand. 

Lafferty and Penn are not as fast as I am, and as much as my instincts scream at me to leave them, I slow my pace so as to not leave them behind. Out on the spokes of land, I look around for any sight of Rory. And then I see him - one spoke over, still standing on his plate, wide eyed with panic. 

“Go!” I snap to them.

Penn, looking terrified, clutches the knife I gave her. I pray that the metal object in Lafferty’s tight grip might be useful, because Penn doesn’t look threatening in the slightest. But I take off running back towards the cornucopia, where Kol and Shimmer are now facing off. Kol swears when he sees me, but Shimmer - spotting me and realizing it is now two to one - dives into the water and doesn’t resurface until she is far enough away that Kol won’t risk his trident.

It looks like Kol is about to have a few choice words for me, but I shake my head.

“Rory. Go after them,” I tell him in explanation and take off running towards the spoke of land closest to my district partner. He doesn’t listen to me though and follows.

I run, ignoring the burning of my lungs and the sun beating down, causing sweat to slide down my face - the rest of me is dry already, in spite of how little time it has actually been since I emerged from the water. When I am as close as I can hope to get to him on land, I prepare myself to dive when Kol grabs me by the shoulder - I barely restrain my instinct to gut him.

“I’ve got him,” he insists and I narrow my eyes.

So far I have had no reason not to trust him - except the knowledge that eventually Rory and I will have to die for him to live. He is a faster swimmer, will get to him sooner - but will I bet Rory’s life on my faith in him?

And then I hear the sound of someone approaching and I see Slate, sword now in hand, running towards us.

“Get him, now!” I snap, trying to step past him. I throw one knife, but Slate raises up his purple belt - narrowly stopping the knife from planting itself between the eyes, as it did with Satin.

Kol ignores me though, raising his trident to face down Slate. I am about ready to dive in for Rory myself when I look down the other way to see Shimmer, penning us in on the other side - a long dagger now in hand. 

“Shit,” I curse. 

“Joan!” Kol shouts.

Jamming my knives into my belt, I notch an arrow in my bow and fire it at Shimmer. She ducks and rolls, before continuing her pursuit towards me. 

A quick glance shows Joan on the spoke opposite Rory.

I hear a splash and see Lafferty standing on the shore - looking frustrated. A flash of copper hair shows Penn cutting through the water towards Rory.

“Joan, cover them!” I shout.

She seems to hesitate, but Kol shouts over. 

“I’ve got her! Get the kid!”

It is a nonsense statement. I know all the words and the order they are in, but it does not make sense in the context of the games. But Shimmer is far too close now. Penn has reached Rory and convinced him to jump into the water with her.

My next arrow isn’t entirely without success. It slices through the material on her shoulder, spraying the sand with red. She shrieks, almost dropping her dagger while her free hand clutches her shoulder. She is closer now and I use her moment of hesitation to swap out for my knives.

“Does this count as our first date?” Kol asks in a teasing voice, his back to mine.

“You haven’t even gotten me dinner yet,” I shoot back

Shimmer comes to a stop when she sees my knife in hand, presumably thinking of Satin’s body; which is still laid out at the entrance to the cornucopia. I take a step towards her, raising my knife and she dives back into the water.

On the far spoke, Joan is helping Rory and Penn out of the water and they set off running towards the beach.

“Kol, time to go!” I shout. He is in a face-off of his own. Slate is too close for him to throw the trident without it getting knocked away by the sword. Yet Slate is reluctant to step too far into Kol’s reach.

Behind him, Shimmer drags herself onto land.

“Slate, let’s go!” She shouts.

Slate is looking past Kol at me as I am slowly backing away. It is clear he has no wish to see me go. But he begins backing away as well. Kol does not move at first, clearly reluctant to leave the threat unhandled. 

“Kol.”

He listens and while he doesn’t turn, he joins me in backing away until Slate and Shimmer are closer to the island than us - neither of us wishing to wait for them to get more long range weapons. 

We take off running towards the beach - looking around for any sight of Lafferty, Rory, Joan, or Penn. But in the short time our confrontation took, they’ve disappeared from the shoreline. 

“They’re probably hiding in the trees,” I say, even though unease is running down my spine. It doesn’t feel right.

“We’ll find them,” Kol agrees.

But even as we step into the trees, I know we won’t.

Behind us, two cannons sound. Somehow, impossibly, the bloodbath is already over.


	19. Come away, little lamb, come away to the water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kol and Cara are cut off from the others, but there are other issues at stake here in the arena.

My first instinct as Kol and I step into the trees, combing towards the area where they might have gone into the forest, is to shout for Rory. Hoping to avoid attracting attention, I keep my mouth shut at first. But just as I have decided to hell with it all, the cannon sounds once again.

“Shit,” Kol mutters.

“Rory!”

I start moving faster through the trees, but Kol catches my arm.

“Cara, we don’t know who that was. We’ve still got Paris unaccounted for and any number of others around. Even if that is them, there’s four of them and Joan knows what she’s doing. I’d rather not attract more attention to them or us.”

I turn towards him, ready to tear into him, but seeing the look in his eyes makes me pause. The anger in my shoulders settles and I shake my head.

“They could be right there, Kol,” I say, but my voice is quiet.

“So could whoever just caused that cannonfire,” he says rationally. “We’ll stay in this area, keep an eye on beach, try to find water. We’ll _ find _ them, Cara.”

I nod slowly. 

“If anything happens to him, I will rip apart everyone in this arena,” I tell him, looking straight into his eyes. It isn’t true. I can’t imagine hurting Lyssa or Dee or Penn. Unless Joan was the one to do it, I don’t think I could hurt her. “I made a promise.

I don’t know whether he is just trying to sooth me or if he believes me, but he nods.

“I know. We’ll get him back.”

Through the trees, we hear the sound of a hovercraft. It is close, certainly. But not close enough to see it through the thickness of the forest cover. We both crouch in the underbrush, waiting until the sound has disappeared. 

“They’re going to be angry,” Kol observes. “Only three deaths in the first hour? If something big doesn’t happen soon, they’re going to do something nasty.

“Maybe if we’re lucky Shimmer and Slate will battle to the death,” I suggest and he grins.

“Maybe,” he agrees.

I turn a slow 180, taking in the foliage around us. 

These are not the woods I know. I cast through my memories for the books Addelise used to read to me in secret. _ Jungle _, the word comes to me. I don’t know if that’s right, but is as foreign a word as this forest is to me. The soil is black and loamy under our feet, hidden by vines and various fauna unknown to me. These trees are not like the ones I used to climb; these with smooth trunks and few branches for me to grasp.

It is green and _ lush. _ Surely, that means there must be water. The air is heavy and hot on my skin, weighed down with moisture. As fast as I dried under the sun, it feels like it is steadily being replaced now that I am under the trees. 

“We need water,” I say pointlessly and Kol nods, swallowing.

“We don’t want to go too far,” he points out.

I look up at the way the forest slopes upward. It doesn’t make sense for the water to be close. They wouldn’t make it so easy. But my instincts say that going uphill for water makes no sense.

“I’m going to climb,” I tell him. “See if I can see anything. Are you good down here?”

Kol nods, adjusting the net over his shoulder and the trident in his hands.

“Give me a shout if something happens,” I say uncertainly.

Though the trees are smoother than I am used to, the rubbery limb make for an easy grip and I find myself scaling it quickly. It is only a couple minutes’ work to get me to the top, pushing my head up through the leaves.

The area around the cornucopia is quiet. Shimmer and Slate are gone. As I watch, four figures break loose from the trees on the far side of the island. It is hard to tell, but I think the small one is Lyssa, along with her district partner and the two from District Eleven. They move warily, but quickly. They make it to the cornucopia without any interference, loading up on weapons. 

I’m surprised the two careers hadn’t stuck around, but I guess they saw the same need for water as we do. Within a couple minutes, the other alliance is sprinting back into the woods from where they came.

Focusing back on the forest, I was right in my gut instinct. The woods slope upwards away from the island. Any water would run downhill and into the lake. There must be some other source of water. Or are they just wanting these games over with? Could they really be that unpopular in the Capitol?

Looking at the trees, they are almost indivisible except for individual large ones dotted throughout. The longer I look, the more symmetrical I realize those individual trees are. They look to be the same distance from the water and from each other. Twelve of them, I count. Like the twelve spokes breaking away from the island; like a wheel. 

I frown, something poking at my gut. _ Look closer _. 

But the more I look, the more of the same I see. It is all so completely the same.

I scramble back down the tree to where Kol still waits. Belatedly, I wonder if I should have feared him abandoning me. If perhaps he and Joan had planned to pick us off and then reunite. But that thought is disproved before I had it. 

“Enjoy the view?” He asks.

“Looks like Eight and Eleven got themselves armed,” I tell him. “The forest just goes uphill from here.”

“So?” He asks frowning.

“So there won’t be water,” I point out. “It is a symmetrical uphill slant all around the ring. So if there was any water, it would run downhill. We might be able to find a stream coming down, but I think we’d see it coming to the lake.”

“That’s not right,” he says, brows furrowed. “They would have water somewhere. Everyone would be dead in three days. It wouldn’t be a good show.”

“There’s got to be water somewhere,” I bite my lip. “Maybe small ponds?”

“We’ll walk up,” he suggests. “See if it flattens out anywhere. If it doesn’t, we’ll turn back. If we find water, we’ll still turn back.”

“Okay,” I agree. Perhaps finding water is the best thing I can do for Rory right now.

We start to make our way uphill through the dense foliage, keeping as straight a line as possible. I walk ahead, cutting through the undergrowth with the longest of my knives. 

Kol is seemingly under-prepared next to me - content with his net and his tridents. Next to him, I have two belts of throwing knives around my waist, my awl, my bow, and two sheaths of arrows. But next to him, I am woefully underprepared for any fight that would bring me in close. Both by choice of weapon and physical strength.

“It was too symmetrical,” I say after a few minutes of walking, not wanting to dwell on these thoughts. “The woods. It didn’t feel right. All the way around. Even the trees were the same.”

“You’re sure?” He asks. He doesn’t sound skeptical, more intrigued.

I huff out a breath, chest feeling tight in the suffocating humidity. “Yeah, there were these twelve trees. All the same, all spaced evenly. That’s not just lazy designing, is it?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” he says doubtfully. “The Games are the biggest event of the year. I can’t see them skimping. Especially not for the Quarter Quell.”

We’ve been walking for maybe twenty minutes and the ground still has yet to level back out. Not even in patches. There is still no sign of water.

I turn back to him and without needing to say anything, Kol nods. His chestnut hair, normally thick and curly enough for a Capitol ad campaign, is slicked down to his forehead with sweat. I can’t imagine my newly short hair is fairing any better. 

“Looks like a halo,” he grins.

“What?” I frown.

He steps up and since he already stands a foot taller than me, easily bats at my hair. “The frizz from your hair. All gold like a halo.”

I scowl and bat his hand away. “Let’s go back down. I’m hungry and better I eat something else than you.”

“I can agree with that,” he says, casually strolling to keep pace with me. 

It is easier to go down, following the path I already cut. Which makes me nervous about how easy it would be for someone else to follow it too. Too late to do anything about it, I keep my knife gripped in my hand and my eyes casting about through the forest. 

Kol stops, reaching up to grab at a cluster of nuts that hang down like grapes. Pulling them down, he grins before breaking one open. I realize what he is doing a second too late and I reach out to stop him.

“Those could be poisonous!” I exclaim.

“Bottoms up,” he grins and tosses them in his mouth.

Too late to do anything, I watch in anxiety for a moment.

“Relax,” he says, tossing me a few. “They grow in Four.”

“Kol Cresta you’re a jerk,” I grumble, but am eager enough to crack open the nuts and eat them myself. They aren’t too filling, but Kol starts pulling more down around us until we’ve got a pile growing at our feet. I take a short walk around while he works.

Curious, I pull at the moss that hangs over everything. I know there must be water. But where?

“What am I missing?”

Taking some of the moss, I try wringing it out. I get dampness on my hands, but not anything which I can drink. As I watch the trees above us, I see signs of life I haven’t noticed. Birds, some brightly colored lizard, even a rather hideous rodent that resembles a deformed rat. All things which would rely upon water.

“I don’t suppose you managed to line up any of those sponsors, huh, Haymitch?” I ask into the open air.

I am empty handed when I return back to Kol; sat with his back against a tree, cracking open nuts. I drop down beside him in a huff and he companionably holds out a fistful for me.

“No luck?” He asks while I chew through a few.

I shake my head. “Nothing. Several signs that there is water, but no water itself.”

The nuts help the growing hunger I had been feeling, but they are only accentuating the dryness of my mouth. Already I can feel a headache working its way up from the base of my skull. 

“So what do we know?” He asks.

“We know that water would flow downhill and it looks like the woods are all at a slant,” I say and he nods. “So we know the water isn’t in ponds or streams. We know that all the greenery here needs water. That there are rodents and birds that wouldn’t survive without it. So we know there _ is _ water.”

“So where can it be if it _ isn’t _ the lake and it _ isn’t _ ponds or streams?” he asks. 

“Underground?” I suggest uncertainly.

“How do the animals get at it?” He asks.

I don’t have any ideas, so I look up into the tree growth. “Maybe if we watch them?” 

“Maybe,” he says skeptically. “But can we wait that long? Especially if we need to be finding the others?”

The reminder makes my nerves roil through my gut again.

Distantly, I hear the sound of two cannons firing in quick succession.

Kol shoots me a look, frustrated and anxious.

“It could be anywhere,” I suggest. “There's four of them.”

“With limited weapons,” he points out, kindly ignoring the lack of intimidation factor for all but Joan..

“I’m going back up,” I say and he frowns. “I’ll be quick,” I promise.

He doesn’t try to argue and I scramble up the nearest tree, being less careful than I probably should be. I reach the top just in time to see a wave crashing out of the trees and into the lake, two spokes of the wheel away. It causes the water levels to rise, choppy waves rushing up over the spokes of the wheel and clawing at the treeline. After a couple minutes, it quiets and a hovercraft appears, lifting two forms up out of the trees. I can’t be sure, but they don’t look like our allies. 

I hurry back down where Kol is waiting for me impatiently, hand clutched around his trident tight enough that the dark skin of his knuckles have turned almost white.

“I don’t think it was them,” I say first and he exhales. “It was a wave, this massive wave, that came out of the trees a couple spokes down.”

“That sounds bad,” he says, which is the most ridiculous understatement of the day.

“Let’s head closer to the treeline,” I suggest. “Maybe they’ll be closer to check it out too.”

Kol just nods and we set back off down the slope. I catch sight of him in the corner of my eye while we go, seeing the tense set of his jaw. He is my age, 18. The last year he would have been in the Reaping. He was a volunteer like me. The thing is, on my own, I don’t feel like that much of a kid. Especially not with Rory around. But seeing Kol when he thought it might have been our _ friends _ (my brain catches on that word with a twist in my stomach), he looked so young. It is maybe the first reminder I’ve had of how young _ I _ am.

We see the break in the trees ahead and slow to a stop.

“You don’t think that wave has anything to do with our water, do you?” I ask.

“No,” he says, corner of his mouth twisting. “It would all keep continuing down anyways. Did it look like there were any creeks or something when you were up there?”

I shake my head. Taking another slow turn, the only thing there really is around us are _ trees _. 

I frown, reaching out to run one hand along the smooth trunk closest to me.

“Cara!” Kol exclaims, excitement in his voice.

I whip around, knife raised in spite of there not being alarm in his voice.

But instead of there being an enemy or another wave, drifting down between us is a little white parachute. 


	20. It sends you spinning, you have no choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cara and Kol recieve a sponsor gift and problem solve. They will meet others before they find their way back to their allies.

Kol is more serious than I expect when he tears into our sponsor gift. But his face falls at what he finds. I can guess what he had hoped for - water. But what we have instead is a strange little metal object. It is a hollow tube, tapered at one end. The other end’s metal lip curves downard.

Shrugging, Kol passes it to me to examine.

“What is it?” I frown.

“A weapon?” Kol suggests and I shake my head, touching my finger to both ends.

“No, it doesn’t look dangerous like that. And why would they send us a weapon? We’re both armed to the teeth.”

Kol doesn’t answer, just watches me turn it over in my hands. 

“What do we need?” I ask him, knowing it is a rhetorical question. “They wouldn’t waste a sponsor’s gift on something we don’t need.”

“What does that thing have to do with water?” Kol asks skeptically.

I don’t have answer for him, turning the tube upside down and then over again. There’s something I’m missing. Surely if Haymitch sent this to us, it means we were close. Or perhaps Finnick sent it and I am completely wrong. But if I am, if it was something from Four, wouldn’t he recognize it?

That voice of survival in my head asks if perhaps Kol knows and simply is waiting to get away from me to use it. But I don’t believe that. I don’t.

What was I doing when I asked Haymitch about the sponsors?

I was looking around for signs of water. Looking at the moss, the trees, the wildlife. We suggested the idea of watching the animals for signs of where they got the water. I must have been close for Haymitch to have sent this.

I pull the awl from my belt and examine it.

“Why’d you grab that?” Kol asks.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I use a similar tool when I’m tanning. It’s smaller though. I use it for stitching and working with the leather. This one’s different. I would guess it’s used for woodworking. So why include it with the weapons?”

“Cara,” Kol says, eyes flying wide.

“Kol!” I exclaim, realizing at the same time as him. 

We both scramble to our feet and I shove the metal tube into his hands. Tightening my grip on the awl, I pull my hand back and drive the tool into the tree as hard as I can. It sinks into the wood easier than it would back home and I am grateful for the strength in my arms from my years of working. It lands two inches deep and I carefully spin the tool, driving it deeper into the wood. I work slowly, not wanting to damage the tool, expanding the hole little by little.

When it is big enough for the tapered end of the tool, I remove the awl and Kol eagerly steps forward to shove it into the hole. Nothing happens at first and I feel a steady sinking in my chest. We were wrong and I made us look like idiots in front of the sponsors.

Then a drop condenses on the lip and drops to the forest floor.

The noise I make is probably not at all conducive to subtlety or avoiding our enemies, but neither of us can be blamed at the moment. Kol maneuvers the tool until the slow drip turns into a steady stream and we take turns putting our heads below the spout.

“I can weave some baskets,” Kol grins. “Catch the water that way.” 

“Must be some baskets,” I grin, but I block off the end of the tool with my finger to spare the water while he gathers materials. Within minutes he returns with a small basket, tightly woven enough that it holds the water when I let it flow again.

“Now we just need …” my voice breaks off, thinking of Rory.

“They’re going to be in rough shape soon if they haven’t figured out the water,” Kol agrees.

We head back towards the tree line and carefully check the beach. It’s empty, but this doesn’t promise anything about who else might be lurking in the trees.

“We’ve got my knives, my arrows, your trident,” I say, touching his arm with my free hand. “This might be our best bet to find them.”

“Might also be how we get Slate back on our trail,” he points out.

“We’ll see him coming,” I say, not sounding sure. But Kol finally assents and we slowly walk out onto the sand. The sun is almost directly overhead now. Not noon, maybe an hour before. We arrived here at dawn, but it feels like a completely different life.

“Can you watch me while I clean my knives?” I ask Kol and he nods, looking up and down the beach. He has our basket of water in his left arm and a trident in his right. I imagine he’d feel better with one hand free. I take the basket from him and carry it down to the water, setting it next to me.

When I take out the knife still covered in Satin’s blood, I have to bite down the gag in my throat as my scanty lunch of nuts threatens to come up. Throwing up after remembering what I did will hardly endear me to the viewers and I can hear Claudius Templesmith's comments in my head. I bite down on my tongue and use the grit of the sand underwater to wash it clean. I remove the belt from my waist and carefully run water over where it is still stained. I don’t get rid of all of it, but it does help.

I have to stop rubbing my hands under the water. The blood is gone from them but I can still feel it on my fingers. My eyes are stinging and my chest feels tight. This is not the time to have a breakdown. There will never be a time for a breakdown.

“Cara,” Kol calls and I turn, strapping my belt back in place and drawing a knife. But there doesn’t seem to be a threat. Kol is staring at the trees to our left, where there is a growing cacophony of sound. It’s a clicking sound that reminds me of the woods in summer. Like insects. But the sound is so violent and angry, it is like nothing I’ve heard before.

“Mutts,” Kol says.

“Let’s go farther down the beach,” I say, backing slowly away from the screaming trees. It doesn’t seem like anything is leaving the woods, but I do not like the sound of whatever is making that noise and will feel comfortable with more distance between us.

We walk down the sand with Kol watching the treeline and me keeping an eye on the island. There has been no sign of movement except for us, but neither of us are interested in tempting fate.

“We need something besides nuts,” I say, if only for conversation. “I could hunt those rodents, but I don’t want to risk a fire to cook them.”

We stop when we feel a comfortable distance between ourselves and the clicking insects and Kol goes to the water; he wades in slowly, looking for something. He apparently finds what he is looking for because he grins.

“Cover me,” he says unnecessarily, and crouches to sift for something underwater.

I don’t question him though and continue to scan the treeline and the island. I don’t like how quiet it is. Why haven’t the gamemakers driven anyone out to face us? Does that mean something is happening in the trees that is entertainment enough?

We’ve had five cannon shots since we got here. One was Satin, one was the Six boy that Kol took out, the third unknown, and the last two I believe are the product of the wave. That’s not enough blood. It has to have been the least violent start to the Games for as long as I’ve been alive. But what did they expect? We’re the product of Victors. We’ve all been taught to survive and everyone knows that the cornucopia is a deathwish. Who else would go besides a career?

_ And me _, I think.

Are Kol and I the careers this year? Obviously, Shimmer and Slate are very much still at large. But Kol and I were the first to get to the island and, if I’m right, we’re responsible for mostof the kills so far.

I try to imagine how it must have been to an outsider. The girl with the one, who, without hesitation, threw a knife into a girl’s head from ten yards away. I didn’t even blink. If that person wasn’t on my side, I’d have been terrified. 

It was me and thinking about it makes me want to curl in on myself. 

Kol returns to my side with an armful of what looks like black rocks. Except when he drops them to sand, I recognize them from victory tour dinners. Oysters. We take turns sipping from our water basket and cracking open oysters. I admit I didn’t actually remember him from when we were kids and once he finishes dramatically clutching a hand to his chest, he proceeds to tell me a story where I dumped a bucket of iridescent glitter on him right before our grandparents had an interview.

“Oh my god, I do remember that!” I exclaim, laughing so hard I nearly overturn our basket. 

He catches it, grinning. “See, I told you!”

When we’ve run out of oysters but are still hungry, he wades to gather more while I watch the treeline. Abruptly, the insect clicking cuts off. Clouds have been gathering overhead and as I watch a bolt of lightning arcs down and strikes one of the tall trees with a shuddering boom. 

“Kol, get out of the water,” I say. 

I didn’t need to tell him as he hurriedly splashes his way to me. 

“Back into the trees?” He suggests and I nod.

We sit by the tree line, listening to the sound of the lightning bolts not too far away and eat the oysters he had collected. I pull down some nuts and we eat, finishing off the last of the water. We’ll need to collect more, but both of us seem to share the same sense of unease. 

We hear the noise before we see them and both of us wordlessly slip back into the undergrowth. Stumbling out of the trees, further down to our right, is the District Seven pair - the ones I thought might make strong allies for Rory. I don’t think they are actually biologically related, but they could be with their shared black hair, angry eyes, and the way they’re both clutching axes in their right hands. Lyssa’s alliance is not the only one to have made it to the island.

The girl, 17 maybe, places a hand out and points. Kol swears under his breath at the oyster shells we left by the water. The two of them cast their eyes across the treeline and I hope we’re well-hidden. I know I could slip away, used to hunting and having to move silently through the trees. But has Kol? 

I know the moment we’re seen, the boy’s eyes lighting up. 

“Do we run?” Kol asks as we both stand slowly. 

“Jax, let’s go,” the girl says, eyeing us warily. 

“No, let’s stay,” he grins. “Let’s put on a show.”

I can guess what he is thinking. Even though his grin and his swagger are all confidence, I can see the nerves in his eyes and his cracked dry lips. Put on a show, maybe they’ll send you water.

“I don’t like our odds if we put our backs to axe wielding lumberjacks,” I say quietly, drawing a knife in each hand.

“I would walk away,” Kol says calmly, his trident held out in a relaxed grip I have seen turn deadly before. 

“Jax, you do this, you’re on your own,” the girl warns, walking backwards back towards the trees.

“One on one, I like my odds,” he says, eyeing Kol’s trident.

“I’d follow your friend,” I suggest, eyes glancing to where she just disappeared into the treeline. I trust self-preservation, but I’m just as wary that she may choose to work her way through the treeline and come up behind us. We shouldn’t stay here.

“Would you, little one?” He asks and my throat burns with loathing. It’s a play on my score, but it is also disgusting to hear in his voice.

“Can I put a trident in his head now?” Kol asks dryly.

Instead of replying, Jax swings one of his axes and lets it fly. It is a stupid move, one we can both easily sidestep. It cracks into the tree, blade first and straight to the handle. He uses our distraction to step forward, drawing his other axe, raising it towards Kol whose trident isn’t set up to block it.

It leaves my path clear and my knife lands cleanly in his neck. His axe drops, hand flying to his throat, panicking and pulling it free. It causes a spray of blood to land at my feet and the wound begins to gush faster as he falls to his knees.

His eyes are blown wide, looking at me, his jaw working to speak even as blood slides out of the corner of his mouth. But I read his lips well enough.

_ You’re a one. _

He falls to the sand beneath us and the cannon fires. The sixth death.

We both stare down at where his blood is pooling, causing sand to congeal into scarlet clumps. 

“He shouldn’t have had to die,” I say, bitterness staining my voice. “He wasn’t a real threat. He should have been fine.”

“I know,” Kol says and I close my eyes, taking a deep breath. 

We can still hear the lightning striking the tree. The clouds cover brings down the heat on the sand by at least ten degrees. I can feel his blood on my shoes. I keep my breathing level and once I am sure I am not about to cry, I open my eyes and step around Jax from District Six to the water. I should check behind me. I should look across the beach and make sure its safe. But I don’t. I just walk across the sand, sidestepping the pile of oyster shells, until my feet are in the water and the blood slowly washes away. 

Kol joins me, crouching to wash away the blood that had apparently gotten on him. Behind us, the hovercraft appears and lifts away Jax’s body. Somewhere in the woods, I am sure the girl from Seven is watching and I want to tell her I'm sorry. 

Not long after the hovercraft is gone, the lightning stops and is replaced by the sound of rain. It doesn’t reach us here and the cloudcover is leeching away, slowly being replaced with the return of the scorching sun. From under the tight fabric of my clothes, I pull Gale’s ring and rub it between my fingers. 

In my periphery, Kol straightens and watches me.

“Got someone waiting for you back home?” He asks.

I shake my head. “It’s not mine.”

“So you’re just casually wearing a man’s wedding band around your neck? What was it, your father’s?”

“My dad died before I was born,” I say to the open water, dropping the ring back into the safety of my clothes. “He was a teenager. My parents never married.”

“How old was your mom then?”

I turn back to the trees, where they slope up to the horizon line. Kol stays facing the island, both of us keeping watch even now. 

“She was 16 when I was born,” I explain. The clouds hovering over the trees in front of us, where the sound of rain comes, don’t look quite right. They’re too dark. “My dad was a friend of hers. She was scared of going into the games and figured they wouldn’t send a pregnant girl, so he … helped her out, shall we say.”

“What a selfless chap,” Kol says dryly. 

“Yeah, well, he was found crossing into the woods four months later and executed. Funnily enough, none of his friends or family ever reported him going into the woods. He never needed to. Not to mention that’s not really a strictly enforced rule around Twelve.” Kol and I exchange an understanding look. “And I wasn’t two weeks old before my mother had an accident of her own, so interpret how you will.”

“That’s how you ended up being raised by Addelise?” He asked.

“What about you?” I ask, knowing I am being intrusive. But I did just admit, or _ imply _ at least, my own tragic backstory. I would say in front of the nation, but I doubt the Capitol was publicising that. “How did you end up with your grandfather?”

“Similar story,” he shrugs. “Except it involved a peacekeeper and wasn’t really my mom’s idea. Granddad tried to make a fuss about it and there was an accident. We always figured I’d be the one in the Games, so it took us by surprise when it was Annie.”

“Thank God we've got the Capitol looking out for us lowly Districts though, right?" He calls out to the sky, grin a little manic.

He knows perfectly well they probably moved away from us right after I admitted that I was the product of unmarried teenage parents. But it wasn’t the districts he was talking to.

“Are you trying to die?” I ask with an eyebrow raised.

“Quite the opposite,” Kol grins. “Though Finnick will probably kill me when this is over.”

I’m about to suggest we go get more water when a crashing at the treeline catches my attention. Far enough away, I grab my bow and am reaching for an arrow when I see them.

Four figures, dripping thick red.


	21. My cruel friend is a funeral bell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cara and Kol reunite with the others and receive another gift.

For a shameful second, I wonder if this might be the gamemaker’s latest psychological horror when I recognize the spluttering voice of one of them.

Kol has his trident raised, but it lowers when I sling my bow over my back and sprint to them. Ignoring three of them, I grab the tall, lanky, bloodsoaked figure by the shoulders. “Rory!”

He tries to answer, but instead just coughs out more blood onto my clothes. I don’t notice, pushing his hair back from his forehead and checking him for wounds. Is it internal? Was he stabbed somewhere? What’s happening?

“Not our blood,” Joan coughs behind me.

“What the hell happened?” Kol demands, catching up.

“Blood rain,” the smallest form splutters, crashing into Kol. Penn. 

“Get to the water,” I instruct firmly, dragging Rory forward and trusting the others will follow.

Rory doesn’t fight me as I push him down to sit where the water comes up to his chest. I instruct him to duck his head under, turning to the others when I notice Lafferty staggering and leaning onto Joan’s shoulder. 

Hurrying, I gently push Joan out of the way to take her place in helping him to the water. She doesn't fight me and goes to clean herself off.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Paris,” Penn says, shaking and waist deep. All around us the clear blue has turned purple. Joan dives fully underneath the surface while Rory, looking more human, is trying to scrub blood from his hair. 

“When?” Kol demands.

“At the very start,” Lafferty exclaims grimly. “It isn’t too bad. Only an inch or so deep. Had an arrow, snuck up behind me from the trees.”

Joan, having surfaced and standing taller and much cleaner, shakes her head. “Seemed pretty out of it. Could have killed Lafferty if he’d gone for the throat. That was why we went into the trees. We weren’t sure if he was alone.”

Kol and I exchange a look. 

“I shot him in the foot,” I explain, helping Lafferty sit. He hisses when the waterline touches the wound on his back. It causes a throb of guilt in my chest, but I keep my focus on him.

“We’ve heard six cannons,” Joan says, looking at Kol. “I know two were from the cornucopia. I saw them. Do you know the others?”

I focus on using our water basket to pour water over Lafferty’s back, cleaning away the blood until it is clean enough for me to check the wound more closely. It doesn’t look good - red, still oozing blood. I’m sure they had done something to stem the bleeding initially, but the strain of running either opened up the wound or knocked a makeshift bandage loose. The biggest risk right now is infection. 

“We don’t know what the third cannon was. Cara thinks the other two came from a big wave that came from a section of the trees. The sixth was the boy from District Seven. He attacked us and Cara took care of it.”

Joan looks at me appraisingly. Gone is the charming, laughing girl from the interviews and our lunches. Her assessment of me is almost clinical. A chill goes down my spine and I have to keep myself from shuddering.

I tell myself that she kept Rory alive, but seeing the change I am not so sure I trust her. Especially now that she has Kol again. How long will it be until the alliance breaks up into smaller priorities? They all know that I will pick Rory. I doubt Kol will abandon Penn, but Kol and Joan seem to have a friendship I don’t share with any of them. 

The trust I have formed with Kol is foolish. He may watch my back now, but soon enough all of us are going to have to choose. I want Rory far away from them when it happens. 

Lafferty’s wound has slowed down in its bleeding. I would feel better if these were the woods back home. I would know what plants I could use to treat this wound. But if any of Addelise’s lessons had ever covered these plants, I don’t remember them.

“I think that’s as good as we’re going to get under the circumstances,” I say to Lafferty, patting him on the shoulder before going deeper into the water myself. 

“Did you guys figure out the water?” I ask, turning partway to face Joan and Kol.

Lafferty answers with a shake of his head. “We were going to try to go further into the forest, but we didn’t want to go too far. Figured it would be harder to find you and didn’t want to strain my injury.”

“We figured out that it’s in the trees,” Kol explains, arms crossed. “One of our sponsors sent us a gift that helps get to it.”

“Want to show her? Bring back a basket?” I suggest, pulling the awl and the metal tool from my belt. 

The two exchange wary looks, which I don’t fully understand. Surely, I should be the one worried? Letting the two of them off to plan privately? But right now my priority is talking to Rory. Privacy is limited, but I can at least get his take on what has happened since I saw him.

“They’ve got me for the muscle,” Lafferty jokes in a weak voice, getting the ghost of a smile from Joan.

“I’ll keep an eye out,” I promise, getting to my feet. “I’ll give you a shout if something happens.”

Seemingly reluctant, Kol nods. 

“We’ll be back in a few minutes,” Joan says, eyes flicking between Rory and me.

When they’ve gone to the trees, woven basket and tools in hand, Rory joins me on the sand at the water’s edge. I am casting my eyes up and down the treeline, but our string of luck seems to be holding up. 

Rory doesn’t need for me to ask.

“After Paris attacked Lafferty, we went into the trees to try to lose him and anyone else that was with him,” he explains, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “Once we’d put some distance in, Joan tried patching Lafferty up. We didn’t want to leave the treeline, but by the time the careers had cleared out so had you. We were trying to find water when it started to rain. We got excited, thinking maybe we could try to catch it in something; but we realized pretty quick it wasn’t regular rain. It was too heavy and thick. We were choking on it. We were running for the beach, hoping it would only be the trees. Then you were there.”

“You feeling okay?” I asked, turning to face him. Behind us were the sounds of Lafferty’s even breathing and Penn swimming around in the water. As long as those two sounds stayed consistent, we were okay.

He shrugs. “As I can be. I didn’t want to leave with them. I wanted to wait for you, but I remembered what you said about running. Whatever happens.”

“You did the right thing,” I assure him. “You had no way of knowing if Paris was alone. “

“How was it with Kol?” He asks, arms crossed, and I am guessing there is a second layer to his words.

“It worked better than I would have expected it to,” I say, biting my lip. “We’ll see what happens now.”

Glancing over our shoulders, Lafferty seems to casually interested in the play of water over his feet to not actually be listening. But what am I saying that would come as a surprise? All alliances are temporary in the Games.

“Was it hard?” He asks.

“Not the first time,” I say, guessing his meaning and fighting down the rock that has taken up residency in my chest. “There was no time to think about it. With Jax, the Seven boy, it was different. He could have walked away. There was more time to see it coming.”

“Do you regret it?” He asks.

What a loaded question. Do I regret that I was brought here and put in a position where it was necessary? Do I regret that Jax didn’t walk away? That I didn’t go for an injury shot, hoping that he would leave and die from his injuries?

“No,” I finally say. “I did what needed to be done. If I hadn’t, it would have had to happen some other way. At least with Satin it was quick. I’ll try to keep it that way in the future.”

I don’t know if that is the answer he was looking for. He goes quiet. But surely he understands that I can’t say the rest of it, not with all of Panem watching. At least what I did say was true. And if Rory thinks I’m a monster? He’ll grieve me less when this is over.

I don’t have anything else to say, so I pull one of my knives rom my belt and hold it out, hilt first. He takes it without saying anything.

Behind us, Penn’s swimming has gone silent. Concerned, I turn. But she is just sitting beside Lafferty, watching us with eyes that are trying to look less concerned than they are. I try to give her a reassuring smile. 

I can’t imagine ever hurting her. But this morning I couldn’t have imagined doing what I did to Satin or Jax. Again, I rationally know what has to be done for Rory to make it. Selfishly, I hope someone else will do it. That some accident in the trees will take that job away from me. 

If it came down to just three - Rory, Penn or Lyssa or Dee, and myself? I couldn’t let Rory do that. I would _have_ to do it. I’m guessing all of our allies know this. Maybe that’s why Kol and Joan were worried about leaving; concerned that I would turn around use the chance to eliminate Lafferty and Penn. Strategically it would make sense - except that I allowed them to leave with my most essential tools. 

Fortunately, it isn’t much longer before Joan and Kol return. This time bearing two baskets of water. They are passed between the others who haven’t had the chance to drink and Kol willingly passes the tools back to me to tuck into my belt. I’m surprised that he did so. I’m not sure I would have. 

“Have you had anything to eat yet?” I ask.

“We had some nuts while we were walking,” Penn says after she finishes eagerly drinking half of one of the baskets. 

“We had some oysters earlier,” I mention. “I also saw several things I could hunt, but I don’t think starting a fire is wise.”

“We’re already out on the beach,” Kol points out. “We’re not really hiding at this point.”

Penn doesn’t seem to appreciate this reminder, looking up and down the shore. I can’t say I do either. We have three good fighters - four, if we include Rory; which I’d rather not.

“We also need to think about where we’re going to spend the night,” Lafferty points out. “I think I’d feel better with tree cover.”

His words are met with the sound of cannonfire, which makes Penn jump about half a foot in the air.

“I like tree cover,” Rory puts in helpfully.

I look over at Kol and he is already looking at me, frowning. How much have we seen happen in the trees? Lightning, insect mutts, blood rain, tidal waves? The beach seems like the safest place to be. Which might be part of the gamemaker’s strategy - make the woods so unsafe that the tributes are forced into a confrontation. 

So far that plan hasn’t worked and I am still nervous at the reckoning that must be coming for our very quiet first day. Only seven kids dead so far? The Capitol must be rioting. 

“Let’s wait for the hovercraft,” I suggest. “Hopefully we can see where it is coming from. I don’t want to go into the forest and run straight into Slate.”

My point receives a general consensus and so we wait until Penn cries out.

“Look!” 

We whirl around to see the hovercraft appearing over the trees on the far side of the arena.

“As far from us as it could get,” Joan observes. “I like the idea of getting farther. Let’s go.”

Among them, Penn has the dagger I gave her, Rory the knife, and Lafferty another small dagger and the strange metal cylinder he’d nearly gotten us killed for. All in all, a ‘could be worse’ scenario, but leaves only three of us comfortably prepared. Since Joan’s spear and Kol’s trident are both inefficient at cutting through the foliage, I am elected leader. 

Uncomfortable with having my back to them, I at least would prefer not to walk through bloodsoaked trees, so we set off to the jungle that appears to have escaped the blood rain unscathed. Again, something about all this nudges at me. This arena doesn’t feel right. But that statement in and of itself is absurd, isn’t it?

Rory walks not too far behind me, keeping in conversation with Lafferty as I cut ourselves a path. I appreciate his efforts, especially since it ropes Kol and Joan into the conversation as well and I feel safer hearing what they’re doing. They talk about their favorite foods in the Capitol, Rory’s thoughts on the absurdities he had never seen before. Eventually there is a lull in the conversation when we must have been walking for a couple hours where Rory directs a question at me.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, Cara,” he says. “What was it you said to Prim?”

“What do you mean?” I ask, frowning over my shoulder.

“At the Reaping,” he says, nudging my shoulder. “You said something to her when she first arrived and she laughed. We were all surprised.”

I look back ahead, sifting through my memory while I cut through a particular tangle of vines.

“Oh!” I realize. “I asked her if she wanted to bet how long it would take for Haymitch to fall off the stage this time.”

It takes a second for this to sink in before Rory starts laughing and one by one the others follow.

“I’d forgotten that,” Joan laughs. “Is he always like that?”

“I wouldn’t really know,” I smile. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen him that drunk. What about you, Rory?”

Rory snickers. “No, but I think that’s more because he and Katniss were scared of Peeta.”

“_ Peeta _ ?” I demand, stopping to look back at him. “What on earth were they scared of _ Peeta _ for?”

“Peeta had us all on this exercise regimen in train- for our health,” he amends hastily, remembering training is technically not allowed. “Made Katniss and Haymitch participate too. One time he walked in on Haymitch blackout drunk, and he made him run five miles the next day with a hangover.”

I snort at this. I am about to cut through another thicket of vines, when I see it and reel backwards just as Lafferty shouts behind me.

“Cara, stop!”

Rory has to steady me so I don’t fall backwards. 

“What is it?!” Joan asks, hefting her spear higher in her hands. But the threat isn’t anything she could find. I hold out my hand for them to wait, walk to grab a nut from one of the nearby plants, and toss it forward.

With a zing and a spark, the nut flies back to me and lands scorched at my feet.

“Forcefield,” Lafferty says.

“How the hell did you know that?” Kol demands, looking between us.

I look down at the gnarled scarring where my little finger used to be on my left hand. I don’t want to admit that it was the wavering patch that Lafferty had pointed out to me in training. I’ve drawn enough attention to it already. From the way Lafferty describes it, it sounds like the chink is unavoidable - a mechanical flaw we’ve yet to surpass. The fact that it is still visible after the stunt I pulled in my private viewing says it probably isn’t something they can fix, but I’d rather not risk walking into it if I’m wrong.

“My hands,” I say instead. “They’ve got a lot of nerve damage from the chemicals I used. The skin is overly sensitive. Felt like my skin was stinging when I got closer.”

When I hold up my hands, with their mottled discoloring and the scarring that came from learning the tools of the trade, none of the others seem willing to argue or examine more closely. Lafferty is the only exception, eyeing me and my hands with skepticism. But he doesn’t fight me on what I said, clearly guessing I have a reason for it.

“How did you know then?” Rory asks, turning to Lafferty with a look of confusion.

Lafferty looks to me, reading my face before he answers.

“I saw Cara flinch before she jumped backwards,” he says. “Figured something was wrong.”

Everyone seems unsettled. The jovial tone we had is lost. When I look closer, Lafferty is looking grey and sweat is dripping down his temple. Penn looks shaky as well.

“Let’s go ahead and make camp near her,” I suggest. “If someone attacks us, they won’t know about the forcefield and we can use it.”

“We could probably use the forcefield to cook meat as well,” Joan suggests, picking up the now thoroughly roasted nut from the forest floor.

With that, we divide up into tasks easily enough. Penn and Kol set to work weaving more baskets for water and for the nuts Joan and Rory are collecting. Lafferty, disgruntled with us insisting he rest, compromises by being our ‘cook’ - tossing nuts at the forcefield to roast them and promising to take over the task when I get back.

It doesn’t take me long to find one of the strange rodents from earlier and even less time to bring one down with my knife. It would be a cleaner kill with a bow - so long as I were more skilled. The knife might cause more damage, but I trust my aim; my throws always land cleanly between the eyes. I skin it here, out in the jungle by myself. I’m not sure how many of the others would have the stomach for it. I know Rory has lived off of hunted food, but did Gale always prepare it?

The ring feels warm and I am too aware of it, shaking off my thoughts as I finish skinning and gutting the creature. I bury the remains in a shallow hole, not wanting to be tracked, and bring the rest back to Lafferty to cook. He looks more green than gray once he sees it, so I sit down next to him and start dicing it into cubes and skewering them before passing it onto him to throw at the forcefield. 

By the time we’re all done, we have a basket full of blackened meat, another of nuts, and several of water. Kol and Penn had even gone so far as to weave the tall grass into mats for us to sit and sleep on. Sitting down with our feast, perhaps ten yards from the forcefield, we’re all almost giddy with our excitement. 

We pass the baskets around, each taking fistfuls of meat and nuts. The nuts are sweet and mild, the gamey flavor of the meat balanced by how tender it is. But mostly, we are giddy because it is the first night in the arena and we are well-fed, we have water, and won’t even have to sleep on the bare earth. We all try to keep our voices down, but periodic bouts of laughter break our commitment to silence. It almost feels like I’m spending time with friends.

The sun is starting to set when another parachute falls between us. We all stare at it, unsure of who to take it.

“I vote Lafferty,” I offer. “He _ was _ stabbed today.”

Everyone seems to think this is a fair assessment, so Lafferty takes the parachute and slowly unwraps our gifts. It’s bread.

Lafferty immediately recognizes the bread - small, bite-sized squares. 

“District Three bread,” he explains. 

All of us are interested, of course. But considering the meal we’ve just had, both Rory and I seem less concerned - especially since it is obviously Lafferty’s gift. The others, however, seem enraptured and Kol quickly pulls the parachute towards himself. He counts the rolls, setting them aside for Joan and Penn to examine when he’s done.

“24,” he announces when he’s done. 

“Enough for all of us to have four,” Rory observes, before looking nervously at Lafferty. “I mean, it’s your bread, so up to you.”

“Sounds good to me,” Lafferty smiles, seeming buoyed by the gift. I guess it might be the reminder of home, but even his coloring seems better. 

We all have one or two pieces of bread before rolling the rest up for tomorrow. The sun has fully set now and we all get ready to settle in. I don’t have a pack, so I’ll get the comfort of sleeping with my belts of knives on me and clutching my bow and arrows. But given the first nights I’ve seen in other Games, I don’t feel like I can complain.

The sun hasn’t been down long when the anthem begins to play. The sky overhead lightens with the Capitol symbol and then it is replaced with Satin’s face. Sitting my knees to my chest, my arms blocking the bottom of my face, I’m hoping the cameras can’t see what I’m feeling. What surprises me is _ Paris’s _ face appearing next. It is followed by the boy from Six that Kol killed, the boy from Seven, the boy from Eight, and finally the twins from District Ten. Seven deaths. A slow first day.

Unwilling, my thoughts flick to Lyssa.

“The only two we don’t know are Paris and Eight,” I observe.

“Cara, we know what happened to Paris,” Penn says like I’m missing something obvious. “He was already off when he attacked Lafferty and the cannons went off pretty soon after.”

I look at her blankly.

“It was you,” Rory explains. “He pulled the arrow out of his foot after you shot him. It probably hit an artery. He bled to death.”

My stomach turns and I have to close my eyes and breathe. I can’t vomit. I can’t.

Of the seven deaths, the four we know were tribute kills, three of them were mine. I remember what Cinna said this morning about my being a good person and I wonder what he is thinking now. Surely he is realizing that he was wrong in his assessment of me. 

Out of all the tributes, even the Careers who have been training for this their whole lives, I was the first to turn to killing. I have so far proved myself to be the most prolific at it. The media must be having a field day and I’m sure Claudius Templesmith is furious.

I don’t say anything of what I’m thinking.

“I’ll take first watch,” I say instead.

No one fights me on this, either because they can tell I am holding onto my composure by a string or because my track record makes me the one they want on guard. But soon enough, all my companions are either asleep or decent enough to pretend they are.

When I am as alone as I can possibly be, I let myself crack. I don’t care of Claudius Templesmith calls me weak. I don’t care what the people of Panem think. At this point, the sponsors would be idiots not to back me now. So when my eyes flood with tears and I have to bite my fist to keep the screaming sobs down, I let it happen. Wrapped tightly around myself, I rock myself back and forth like you would a child and let myself cry. The way Addelise used to when I had nightmares.

I’m not sure how long it is before the tears slow, but I wipe them away when they do. The saltwater sting on the back of my hand says I probably broke skin, my poking at it doesn’t hurt too much so I doubt it is too bad. I level my breathing until my heart rate slows down in my chest. This is not okay. Nothing will ever be okay again.

I listen to the sounds of the jungle and stare into the darkness of the trees until my eyelids feel too heavy to keep open. Joan wakes up quickly enough when I touch her arm, hand flying to the spear by her side. But she doesn’t say anything, just takes her place on watch so I can curl up on my mat. It isn't exactly comfortable with two belts of knives and two quivers of arrows on my back, but I am tired enough that my eyes still droop closed.

I fall asleep remembering the feel of water rocking me while I swim.


	22. Come away, little lamb, come away to the slaughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cara and company awake to the sort of threat they can't fight.

I am in the little river outside Twelve. The water feels different, with small waves and without the tug of the current on my body; but I like it. I don’t remember it being this deep either. Normally my toes touch even in the deepest parts. But because the water isn’t pulling at me, I’m not worried.

It is dark now, the way most of my memories of the woods are, and I lose myself swimming through the reflection of the stars on the river’s surface. I just enjoy the feeling of being rocked by the water, until I bump against the rocks where I normally sit and watch the fish. 

When I look up at them, I’m not alone. For a second I’m scared, but I don’t remember why that should be.

“Hey, nymph,” the boy says, grinning down at me.

“Not _ you _ again,” I say reproachfully. 

“It’s your fault,” he counters. “You’ve got plenty of other people you could dream about now. What about that Finnick Odair guy?”

“He’s too pretty,” I dismiss.

“Am _ I _ not pretty?” He asks, amused.

I rest my chin on my arms, crossed on the rocks. The water still tugs softly at the skin on my back. 

“I want to stay here,” I say to the stars behind him. “I like it here.”

“You’ve got to go back soon,” he says, sounding apologetic. “He’s waiting for you.”

“It’s not fair,” I say petulantly, knowing I sound like a child.

“No, it’s not,” he agrees. “If it helps, I wish you could stay here too.”

I sigh, but I can’t remember why I’m so sad. 

“Cara, you need to wake up now,” he says, but the sadness is starting to sting on my skin like little needles.

“Cara!” The boy says, reaching down to shake my arm.

“Cara!”

I jolt awake and it isn’t the boy from the woods. It's Rory and my skin really is stinging. More like stabs, tiny stabs crawling up my arms.

Instantly, I throw myself up, bow in hand and grabbing for my knives. But there is nothing to fight. Kol and Pen are already on their feet and Joan has just pulled Lafferty to his. Rolling down the sloping ground and already tickling at our ankles is a heavy fog. Where it touches, my skin burns and blisters.

I grab Rory’s arm and start running, half throwing him ahead of me. The others are on our tail, but when I look back, Joan and Lafferty are flagging. Lafferty is running slower, clearly affected by his injury. 

I turn back towards them, snapping “_go_!” at Rory when he tries to follow me.

Kol tries to grab me by the arm to stop me too, but I’ve already put my arm under Lafferty’s and set off running again. Lafferty stumbles periodically, but thankfully is close to Joan in height so he doesn’t completely overbalance us. 

The fog tugs at my nose, sickly sweet and burning. When I turn my head, it extends in a uniform line in either direction. So I keep my eyes ahead of us to where Kol and Penn are running, Rory a few feet ahead of them. It still nips at our heels, droplets burning and burrowing its way into my skin. It reminds me of how my hands feel on Saturday evenings, when I have been elbow deep in the tanning vats since dawn - that chemical, bone deep burn. My shoes and clothes seem to offer even less protection than the ancient gloves Tobiah gave me. 

Every few feet, Rory looks over my shoulder and on the one occasion when he tried to stop, my screamed threat was so colorful and furious he actually picked up speed. At first, Lafferty seems to be keeping pace and so Joan and I drop our grip from around him. But just as he seems to be running on his own, the burning pain is crawling up the back of my legs.

Instinct says to sprint ahead. To leave them behind and think only of Rory, who seems to be far enough ahead of the worst of it. But no matter how much I tell myself to do it - that Rory is my only priority - I can’t do it. I can’t leave the girl who was my friend once, no matter who she is now. I can’t leave Lafferty, who stood at my side when Slate tried to intimidate me.

“Do I have to threaten to shove a pine tree up your arse too?” I gasp at Lafferty, trying to keep my voice teasing.

He barks out a whine, which might have been a laugh, before his foot catches on the vines around us and he falls. Joan and I both have him by the arms, dragging him up and forward, but the burning has reached up my back and the arm holding my knife spasms. The spasms force the knife from my hand and it drops to the forest floor. There is no time to stop for it.

Kol shoves me aside, grabbing Lafferty under the arm. He is quicker than Joan and I together, taller and built from hard muscle. But the left side of Lafferty’s face is drooping and the spasms moving up my arm are getting stronger now. The fog must only be a few feet away now. Lafferty’s legs seem to be spasming more than running and Kol is fully supporting him now. 

And then Penn trips, tumbling to the ground with a cry. 

I grab her up as I pass, but her right foot gives out when she tries to run. There’s no time to think, I half throw her on my back and keep running. I am strong from work and hunting, but I’m barely taller than Penn herself. We’ve bought some space - perhaps a few yards - and ahead of us, Joan, Kol, and Lafferty are doing even better. Farther ahead, Rory seems entirely in the clear.

Both arms are twitching uncontrollably though and Penn is only holding on by her own strength as I run. My lungs are burning and it feels like acid drops are burrowing into my bones and up my legs. I can’t think, just keep my focus on following the others. My legs are getting stiffer, harder to run, and I know I am slowing. When I look down, tendrils of fog are playing at my calves. I almost watch it as my foot catches on the undergrowth and I crash down. 

It’s hard to get up, not having much use of my arms, but I manage it, even as my thighs scream at the rising burn. 

In the seconds before my legs give out again, Penn cries out from my back.

“Kol!”

He turns as I fall, pushing Lafferty onto Joan who keeps running forward. But faster then him, Rory crashes past.

“No, you stupid boy!” I yell, but my voice comes out a cracked wheeze. He pulls me up just as Kol arrives to pull Penn from my back.

“You can shove a pine tree up my arse when we’re out of here,” he promises.

Half carrying me, Rory starts us forward at a faster pace. He is barely affected by the fog, whereas my spasms are now running down my whole body. Most terrifying, the burning in my arms has been replaced by numbness. Rory is much taller than me, making our movement more an awkward high speed hobble. But he is also not as strong as Kol or myself and I can feel it as he starts flagging. 

My thoughts are muddled and I can’t think clearly when I feel Rory’s arm spasm around me.

“Go,” I croak, legs giving out. “Just run.”

But Rory, won’t leave me, struggling to carry all my weight. Up ahead, Joan’s legs give out, her and Lafferty crashing down. But Kol doesn’t stop to help her. He turns back to where Rory is still struggling to pull me along even as his own arms are giving out.

“Get Joan and Lafferty,” he says to him. “I’ve got her.”

Rory nods, seeming to trust Kol at his word. He races ahead, putting unsteady arms around them to help pull them along. 

“Just have to make everything a show, Lynnwood,” Kol croaks.

“Kol, get out of here,” I try to say, but it comes out a gasp with only a couple intelligible words. As I watch, Penn drops off his back and begins stumbling forward, her injured foot giving out every other step. Kol doesn’t let me argue, throwing my mostly useless body onto his back. 

I’m not sure how long we go like this, Penn barely keeping up, until Kol’s legs give out and we crash to the ground. Up ahead, I see Rory crawling, trying to pull a prone Lafferty and Joan with him. Stupid, wonderful boy.

I’m pretty sure this is where we’re going to die. But the excruciating pain doesn’t seem to be getting worse. It might be my fog-shredded brain, but the fog behind us seems to be becoming thicker, whiter. But no, it’s condensing. Rolling up a wall I can’t see, like the gamemakers had drawn a line it could not cross.

“It’s stopped,” Rory says in a cracked voice.

I barely understand the words, but I roll off of Kol’s back and follow as we crawl our away towards the sand. 

“What are those things?” Penn rasps from a few feet away. 

I strain my burning muscles to look up, spotting the strange orange creatures.

Monkeys, my brain supplies from fanciful childhood stories I can’t remember. I try to tell her, but my voice isn’t working.

Eventually, vines and dirt are replaced by coarse sand.

Up ahead, I hear Joan cry out in pain and I wonder if we’re being attacked when it is followed by Lafferty's yelp, but I keep crawling forward. There are other sounds of pain, but they are replaced by sighs. I learn what it is when my hand touches water and I have to bite back a scream.

It feels like every chemical burn I’ve ever had held over a fire. I yank it back, biting my tongue to keep from crying out.

_ You have to wash it out_, says a voice in my head that has worked with chemicals for years.

I try to pull myself farther forward, but when my arm gets farther into the water I have to muffle my scream in the sand. I manage to get all the way to my shoulder when my body starts trying to give out on me.

Steady hands take hold on either side of my waist and pull me in. Gone is the little by little approach. In one motion, I am up to my torso in water and a hand claps over my mouth to muffle my scream. I didn’t realize my eyes had been closed, but my vision is blurry when they fly open. Over me is a tall figure with black hair and dark olive skin. 

Rory, my brain helpfully supplies. We sit in the water, him supporting my weight. When it’s clear I’ve stopped screaming, that I’m aware of what’s happening, he cups water in his hand and runs it over my face - both washing away some of the sand and causing the chemicals to leave my skin as little tendrils of fog.

“You’ve got to go under,” he says and I nod. Moving back, he places one hand between my shoulders and the other on my forehead and pushes me beneath the surface. I open my eyes, my mouth, and intentionally take in water.

When he lets me up, I am coughing and gagging, but my head is finally clearing. I am able to support my own body, looking around at the others.

Joan and Penn seem mostly recovered and helping pull Kol further into the water. Lafferty is submerging himself, before rising back up and shaking off the water.

I look back at Rory, whose face is drooping on one side still. I notice the twitch of his left shoulder.

“Stupid Hawthorne boys,” I mutter. 

Managing a sheepish grin, in spite of his incapacitation, he doesn’t wait for me to instruct him before ducking underwater himself.

I take the chance to go back underwater again, clearing out my throat and my sinuses one more time. I strip myself of my jumpsuit, which is mostly ruined. But my belts - both flotation and knife- seem untouched, as well as my shoes. Thankfully, my underwear seems unaffected as well. Around me, the others are doing the same.

Panicked, my hand flies to my throat, but the ring is still there. I tuck it protectively under my undershirt and the thick band of the athletic bra they put us in. Then I set to work on putting everything else back on.

“Do you still have the awl and the tap?” Joan wheezes from a few feet away.

For a split second, fear spikes into my heart, but both are there when I pat my belt. 

“We’re good,” I say back and she visibly relaxes.

“I can go tap the tree,” Rory offers. “I was the least affected.”

If we were in better condition, I’d make him take one of us with him. But as it is, I make him promise to stay where we can see him.

“Yes, mother,” he says with a roll of his eyes and he is so a teenager that I smile. 

“Don’t speak to your elders that way, young man,” Kol calls from the deeper waters.

He laughs, but doesn’t argue further and I roll onto my stomach to keep an eye on him. He keeps his word, sticking to the treeline. With my legs soaking, I decide I’m feeling better enough to join him and be the nag that I am. But I haven’t made it halfway when something is off.

The creatures from earlier, the monkeys, they line the trees and watch.


	23. Something I can put my finger on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cara and company may have emerged from the fog but things still are not clear.

Rory is paying them no mind, but has also obeyed my request and settled upon a tree at the very edge. So I walk slowly towards him, keeping my eyes on Rory and Rory alone. What had been a few monkeys has converged into a wall of orange in the branches above. When I am a few feet away, I speak very calmly.

“Rory,” I say. “Come towards me.”

“I’ve almost got it,” he says, working the awl into the tree.

“No, Rory. Come towards me and look  _ only _ at me.”

I see the moment when Rory understands that something is wrong. His shoulders tense and he goes completely still. He abandons the awl in the tree, keeps his eyes completely level, and turns in my direction. Behind me, I hear the shifting of sand that signifies someone else has come up behind me. 

I keep my eyes in line with Rory’s, my expression neutral, and slowly hold out my hand. My heart is pounding in my chest and my palms feel sweaty. Perhaps I am misreading the situation, but all I can think of are the clicking insects and the horrible fog. 

Rory takes two even steps and sets his hand in mine. Keeping our eye contact, I slowly walk us backwards towards the water. I can see the panic in his eyes and I am trying to keep my own breathing even, but the panic I see is overwhelmed by something else: trust. Determined, foolhardy faith in me that I will keep him safe and if I tell him only to look at me then he knows that is what he should be doing. That trust burns in my throat like a breath of chemical fog, but I keep going step by steady step.

“I’ve got you,” I promise.

”I know,” he says and the heel of my foot hits the water’s edge.

“Okay,” I say, fighting down my hyperventilating. “We are all going to carefully walk farther down the beach, without looking at those things.”

“Why?” Penn asks, somewhere to my left. 

“Because it has worked so far and I would rather not risk us getting attacked by a hundred mutts,” I say, unable to keep the testy edge from my voice.

Letting go of Rory’s hand, I look at the base of the trees so the blur of orange stays in the top of my vision and I start walking farther down the beach. When we’ve put perhaps fifteen yards between ourselves and the monkeys, I allow myself to stop and breathe.

Only then does Rory look and all the color drains from his face when he does.

They still sit in the top branches of the trees, watching us with beady eyes. Individually, they don’t look ominous or threatening. But there must be dozens sitting in those branches, staring at us. Certainly more than I think I can count, unsure if I can even see them all. Their teeth are not bared, I do not see any claws. But my blood feels like ice as they stare us down.

“While that may have been an overreaction,” I offer, “I propose we don’t go anywhere near those things.”

“I can second that,” Lafferty says from somewhere to my right.

We are all still unsettled when we begin to divide up tasks. The awl is lost to us at the moment, but Lafferty and Rory agree to do their best with a knife and sheer determination while an unsteady Penn weaves more baskets for them. Joan, Kol, and I are left standing on the beach, watching the monkeys and our friends and feeling much more useless than we are accustomed to feeling.

We have the full attention of those creatures still, but they don’t attack. They blink, a tail occasionally twitches in the still night air, but the forest line is otherwise motionless. Watching them watching us, I have never felt so useless. That nagging feeling in my gut has taken a stronger hold on me, insisting that something isn’t right. There is something I’m missing. 

“There was the fog,” I think aloud, getting the attention of the other two. “There was the clicking beetles. The monkeys.”

“The blood rain,” Joan adds, catching on. “The lightning.”

Kol frowns at us both. “And? There are always horrors in the arena.”

I shake my head. “There’s something different. We’re missing something.”

“And why hasn’t it been worse?” Joan challenges.

“Worse?” Kol splutters. “You want things to be worse?”

I nod, agreeing with Joan. “There are only seven dead. We didn’t take the bait with the monkeys and we all survived the fog. Why aren’t the game makers using some kind of trick to push the others out of the woods? They need a bloodbath and we didn’t give them one.”

“They had to have expected more,” Joan nods. “We’re victors kids. Everyone must have been expecting something especially bloody.”

“They miscalculated,” I observe grimly. “Victors don’t raise victors, they raise survivors. We’ve been playing the Games our whole lives. We’re not new at this, we don’t rush into a fight unless we know our opponent’s hand.”

“But that doesn’t explain why they aren’t trying to fix that,” Joan counters. 

The arena is still dark. The stars are different than they are back home, but I have still spent so many nights out in the dark woods that I can guess we are still a ways away from morning. But why are the stars different? I recognize these constellations, but they are the ones I know from cold winters and not humid summer nights.

My thoughts travel back to the astronomy books my grandmother had set aside for me, hidden in the attic among the dust and the rest of the studies she never wanted the Capitol to know I had. We cannot really be so far away for there to be different stars, can we? I don’t remember perfectly, but the constellations this time of year should be consistent on the same continent.

Addelise’s voice in my head reasons through the problem. _So either you aren’t on the same continent or this isn’t the real sky._ _Which is more likely?_

I think this time of the chip, the imperfection in the force field. How it appeared just like the trees around us, impossible to notice if you did not know what to look for. If we could not be on a different continent, then this could not be the real sky. But what was the point? The force field around the arena made sense - it kept us  _ in.  _ But what was the purpose in a fake sky? It was hardly an escape route we could use.

_ So,  _ Addelise’s voice said again in my head, impatient like she had been when I hadn’t been focusing on my studies,  _ if it isn’t keeping you in, then what is it doing? _

_ It’s keeping something out,  _ I realize.

A chill ran down my spine. My heart pounded in my chest and I felt cold fingers down my spine. This felt important somehow. Another detail that didn’t make sense but somehow seemed significant. 

“I’m going to hunt,” I blurt, breaking the silence. 

The other two look at me incredulously, but the sounds of the others rejoining us prevents their response.

“But it’s still late,” Rory drowns, passing is one of the baskets of water to drink. “You’re still in rough shape. You need to rest.”

His pointing it out is what reminds me of the bone deep ache still in my body and the itch beginning to permeate my skin. But there is another itch, that urgent voice saying  _ something’s missing, something’s missing, something’s missing.  _

“I can’t sleep,” I say honestly. “I can go hunt so you all will have food when you wake up.”

“We’ve got oysters and we can collect nuts,” Kol points out rationally. 

“I can go with you,” Rory offers, seeming to understand that something is amiss with me.

“No!” Joan interjects, getting everyone’s attention. “I mean, you’re in the best shape out of all of us Rory. You would be best for first watch. I can go and watch Cara’s back.”

I eye her warily. This is not the first time she and Kol have seemed reluctant for Rory and I to go off on our own. Logic says that this is dangerous, that Joan is likely my biggest threat regardless of our past. She is the last person who I should let be near my back. But that same voice, the one that won’t let me be, thinks I can trust her.

That voice is bullshit .

“We won’t be gone long,” she says looking at me and it almost sounds like a warning. “We’ll go, catch a couple rodents, and  _ come right back. _ ”

She says it almost like she is daring me to disagree. Rory is looking back and forth between us nervously. 

What do I say? Do I refuse? Do I insist on Rory coming?

It would be smart, I realize. Split off now. Rory’s got the water tool attached to his belt. They’re all tired, unlikely to chase after us now. Maybe that’s why they don’t want us going. 

The voice is wrong, common sense tells me. This is it. Joan is going to use this as her chance to get rid of me.

Better this confrontation happen this way than when Rory might be close enough to get hurt. I just have to be faster than Joan. Wait for my opening and don’t leave my back to her. Memories of a dark attic and Addelise’s instructions on how to use a dagger against an opponent with a longer reach. Like Joan’s spear. _Get in close,_ I remember her saying. _When you’re smaller, use your speed and their size against them._

“Okay,” I agree. “This won’t take long.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short chapter, mostly to announce that I’m back. In the last four months, I moved states alone, started grad school, and then had my entire life get shut down by a global pandemic in said new state alone. It’s been rough, but I am doing better and I am excited to come back to this world and these characters. You can expect to see the next chapter either this evening or tomorrow night! 
> 
> I’m very excited for where this story is going and I have officially decided it is going to be split into two books. Thank you to those that have stuck with me since the beginning and welcome to any new readers who have stumbled across this story!
> 
> On another note, this chapter contains one of the fix-it moments for me. The entire monkey fiasco could have been avoided if Katniss had simply told Peeta not to look at the monkeys when she tipped him off. Love the original but oh my gosh that part gets me every time.


	24. Oh, darling, understand that everything, everything ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joan and Cara finally have an honest discussion about shared history. But even in the midst of horror, everything, everything has an end.

We step into the woods, leaving a tense group pretending to try to sleep by the water’s edge. It is perhaps not the best strategy, but our wariness of what hides in the trees has only been growing. The monkeys appear to have been the final straw.

Joan and I walk side by side, listening to the sounds around us. It is darker here than by the lake, the heavy foliage blocking out the light of the false stars and waning moon. But this is okay, it is how I am accustomed to hunting. As easy as slipping on my old gloves, I slip into my old habits. My footsteps become more careful, feeling the ground as much as walking. My other senses compensate for the limited sight. I keep a knife held lightly in my hand. Outside of traps and fishing, this is how I most often hunted.

But the truth is I am paying less attention to the sound of small animals in the trees and a potential hunt. I am focused on Joan, wondering when she will choose to strike.

But she doesn’t, not yet at least.

“How do you hunt like this?” Joan asks, breaking the silence and chipping the tension. “You weren’t … you didn’t really hunt at night, did you?”

“I had to,” I tell her, listening to her footfalls and waiting to see if she would turn towards me. “I had school and responsibilities to earn my keep.”

“They really didn’t feed you?”

“Sometimes,” I say, reaching out to touch a section of torn damp bark. “On special occasions or if Tobiah was in a good mood and there was food leftover. But usually if I didn’t hunt, I didn’t eat.”

“Weren’t there … homes you could go to? Like community places?”

“And died of disease, starving?” I snorted. “That would have been a death sentence. I was fine where I was.”

“Do you remember the last time we saw each other?” She asks after a moment of walking in shared silence.

“It would have been after victory tour? Right?” I ask.

I come to a stop, turning to face her myself. There is no point in keeping up this charade. We might as well look at each other head on.

She stops as well but her expression is difficult to read in the darkness. 

“Yeah,” she says. “We went with our grandmothers to the Capitol for the parties. We didn’t have any other family to watch us so we were usually allowed to go. Kol was there too that year.”

“I don’t really remember anything specific,” I admit. “It wasn’t long before Addelise died.”

“It was nothing much different from any of the other years. We played and got into trouble with our grandparents. Or rather _ you _ got us into trouble.”

Even in the dark now, I can see the outline of her smirk.

“Not going to take any responsibility, huh?” I say without any spirit.

“Kol and I thought you were the coolest girl in Panem,” Joan goes on. “Hell, I’m pretty sure you were my first crush.”

“Come on, surely you had better taste than that,” I tease weakly. 

“When I first saw you again, at training, even though you look the same, I almost didn’t believe it was you,” she said, ignoring me. I wondered where she was going with this, because I couldn’t figure why she wasn’t just getting this over with. “You were always so vibrant when we were kids. After you stopped coming to the Capitol, I think that’s why I started running around and getting into more trouble. Getting into places I shouldn’t. Felt like that’s what we would be doing if you were there. But when I saw you again I thought it was like someone had just scooped out all that stuff from inside you and dumped it out.”

“We were kids,” I said stiffly. “We’re not the same people anymore.”

“See, I don’t think that’s true,” Joan says shaking her head. “Because two days in the arena and you’ve got Kol, Lafferty, and those kids ready to follow you and I’m willing to bet you’ve a captive audience out there too. I think you _ want _ to be hard and hollowed out. But I think you’re still the same kid who can charm a crowd into helping you pour vinegar into party drinks and I think you _ hate _ that.”

“Is that so?” I ask, voice full of ice. “I suppose that’s a problem to you?”

“It might be,” she says. “Because if you’re not ready to have them follow you, they can get hurt because of your agenda.”

“This is the Hunger Games,” I snort. “We all have the same agenda and if they think they can trust any of us than they’re a bunch of fools.”

“These aren’t just any Games and you know it,” Joan says, her own voice starting to get as cold as mine. But there was a note of desperation as well, likely she was trying to say something else. It’s too dark to be certain but her eyes seem to flash down to the knife I still have in my hand. She hasn’t seen me throw, but I’m sure she has a pretty good idea of what I’m capable of. I don’t answer and her hand tightens on her spear at her side.

We lock eyes and I think we both know that I am faster - at least in comparison to her spear. This won’t be a fair fight. She would be dead before she finishes setting up a strike. What was she thinking? Did she plan on striking when my focus was on the prey? But she was the one who spoke to me, who got me caught up in this pointless conversation about a past that doesn’t matter anymore. She is the one who kept my focus on her. It isn’t arrogance; Joan Tripp has always been the smarter of the two of us. She wouldn’t fall into that trap.

_ You’re missing something _, that voice says again but now it feels like it is taunting me.

Our escape through the fog was wrong. I am only alive because the others helped me, not just Rory. I think of Kol’s instructions to Joan to take care of Rory back at the cornucopia. Why would they help him?

Even the stars are wrong here.

_ It doesn’t matter, _I tell the voice. I know why I’m here. It isn’t for Joan or Kol or the chance to stroll down memory lane. I made a promise to get Rory home and I will keep as much of the blood on my soul as I can so it won’t be on his.

The voice is quiet when I make my decision. I am eying the place on Joan’s neck where I will have to strike when we hear the first scream.

The both of us whirl toward the sound, somewhere ahead of us and towards the lake. The moment breaks but anger still hangs in the air.

The scream was deep, masculine, in pain, and _ familiar _. I can’t place it until I hear it again.

“Rory!” I yell and take off into the trees, not caring that my back is now fully exposed. Joan is not on my list of priorities. 

But as I run, chasing the sound, I realize it isn’t right. I tear into a clearing, hearing the scream much closer now but it is _ off _ . The voice is too deep, too rich to be Rory. Hell, I’m pretty sure Rory’s voice would have cracked. But it _ sounds like him _. I whirl, seeking out the source of the noise, but I can’t find where it’s coming from. Until Joan tears in after me, stumbling in her haste, I’m alone but for his scream.

“Cara!” She demands and I whirl on her, eyes flashing and knife raised and I am sure I look wild.

“What did you do?” I snap. “Was this a trap? Where is he?”

“No!” She growls, arms raised. “No, you’re blind, you _ stupid girl _. I don’t know!”

Ignoring her, I whirl again when I hear the scream again. But again, it sounds like Rory but it’s too … 

“Oh my God, Gale,” I gasp. 

I don’t know Gale’s voice well enough to place it with certainty, but as soon as the guess leaves my lips I know it’s true. It sounds so much like Rory, but it is too deep to be him.

I am instantly flooded with rage, overwhelming the fear I had been feeling. I know Gale can’t be here. But they got his scream from somewhere. Somewhere out there, Rory’s brother was tortured as a sick way of getting at us in this arena. I snarl, realizing on some level that I must seem animalistic and mad right now. 

I see the source in the trees now. A bird, beak open and making that horrible sound. A jabberyjay. Without thinking, without realizing I’d done it, I see my knife plant itself in the bird’s chest and it falls from the tree. But as I turn back to Joan I hear another scream, this time a woman. 

“Saphia!” She cries and twists to dart back into the trees after the sound.

I chase after her and all around us are the sounds of more screams. Some seem familiar, like I should know them but can’t place them. One even sounds like Addelise, but I know for certain that that can’t be real.

I catch up to Joan, clutching her head and crouched on the forest floor where she is murmuring something. 

“Joan, we have to go,” I demand, shaking her shoulder. “We need to get to the others.”

“Saphia,” she whimpers. “They have Saphia.”

“It doesn’t matter right now, we have to go,” I say heartlessly, pulling at her.

“It doesn’t matter?” Joan screams at me, stumbling to her feet and shoving me backwards. It occurs to me to wonder where she dropped her spear. “It doesn’t matter?”

“Not right now it doesn’t,” I demand sharply. “It’s not a right now problem. It’s not real, they’re jabberjays. Right now we worry about what we can fix immediately and right now have to go.”

Even in the dark, only a foot away from me, I can see her eyes catch onto the hope of my statement. But it quickly dims. “But how did they get the sounds, Cara? They had to get it somewhere.”

“We figure that out on the beach, let’s go,” I say, grabbing and pulling her in what I hope is the right direction. The sound of screams around us are awful and loud and terrifying themselves, even if I can’t place any other besides Gale’s. But I use his voice to ground me, even as I have to half pull Joan with me while she claws at her ears. I can’t fix whatever they may have done to Gale, but I can keep my promise. I can get to his brother. Wherever Gale is, I know that’s what he would want my priority to be. 

Up ahead I can see the break in the trees and begin moving quicker. Joan is sobbing now and I am dragging her more than pulling. A few feet away, I hurry quicker.

My body slams into some invisible force and I cry out in pain, thankful at least that the angle meant my shoulder and the side of my head took the hit and not my face. Somewhat mercilessly, I drop Joan to the forest floor and pound my fist against the solid air in front of me. Around us the screams rise as the jabberjays settle into the trees above us. 

Rory is the first to run into my sight, panic written all over his features. But his attention is on me and I thank whatever pantheon of gods there might be that he apparently can’t hear what I do. I look up and down the tree line around him and see the others sprinting this way. They apparently had realized something was going on, had been searching for a way through to us. 

Kol catches up to Rory, nearly slamming into the barrier himself. His eyes are blown wide too, but his attention is on where Joan is curled on the ground, clutching her head, and rocking herself. 

I slam my hand on the barrier in front him, causing him to look at me. 

“She’s not hurt!” I yell, hoping he can read my lips.

I try to keep it together even as I feel my control cracking. My vision blurs and I realize it’s because I’m crying. My chest heaves as I struggle for air. Even not knowing these voices, the pain and the horror is cracking into my head like a knife. 

I try to distract myself by looking at them. I only just now notice that they are both painted with something dark brown, almost green. Like they had rolled around in mud and algae while we were gone.

An equally smeared Penn and Lafferty stumble up beside them, looking agape and horrified. Somehow I stay on my feet, a ringing in my ears slowly replacing the sounds of the screams. My head spins and my skin burns with my lungs. I was the idiot. I was the fool. I should have stayed on the beach, let Rory take first watch and pretended to sleep. This was my fault, _my fault, my fault_. The chant in my head seems to continue on and I don’t know how much time passes like this.

Vaguely, I grow aware of movement somewhere behind them. But it registers too late, even when I start to pound on the surface, screaming myself. 

They’re distressed. Rory hits the barrier back and I think he must be saying ‘_ it’s not real! It's not real! _’

It is Kol, Kol who somehow seems to understand me so easily, who realizes too late that I am not looking at them. He turns. But not before the boy from District Five’s dagger slices cleanly through the front of Penn’s throat, spraying the barrier with her blood and blocking me from more than a second’s view of her terrified eyes.

Penn falls and Lafferty catches her, but it is Rory who spins and without hesitation drives the dagger I gave him into his chest.

He stumbles backward, clutching at the wound. Rory falls back into the barrier, blocking my sight. But beyond them all I see the sight of Shimmer running back into the darkness, abandoning the ally she had sent to die: Joan’s district partner

Even over the sound of the jabberjays screaming, I hear the two cannons fire.

Lafferty is on the sand, covered in Penn’s blood, holding her and frozen in shock. Rory stares down at the bodies in front of him, his knife slowly dripping blood. Kol has a hand on his shoulder, looking like there was something he meant to say before he forgot how to say it.

The jabberjays fall silent and the barrier falls, my fists now clenched against open air.   
  
Everything is quiet, except for that voice saying _my fault, my fault, my fault._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A particularly brutal chapter to write and I guess to read. Not the happiest first day back, but we are definitely in the thick of it now.  
Please let me know what you think, I would love to hear from you. Both kudos and brutal critiques are appreciated.


	25. Help me to carry the fire, this road won’t go on forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cara is running out of time to make sense of what she has done and what others are doing.

I am the first to move. A gentle hand pulls Lafferty to his feet and towards Joan, who is finally starting to stir and come to her senses. Then there is Rory, who is stood frozen, hand clasped so tightly around his dagger that his nails are starting to draw blood before I coax them open. I take the dagger from him, replacing a clean one of mine in his belt. I urge him towards Lafferty, who is gently leading Joan to the water. He follows, seemingly unaware of his own actions.

He needs help, I know, but more pressing is Kol who stares at the bodies before him unseeing.

“She wasn’t supposed to die,” he croaks.

“I know,” I murmur, cautiously taking his hand. 

“She should never have been here,” he says, not seeming to notice my touch. 

“No,” I agree. “She shouldn’t.”

He looks at me now, green eyes lost, angry, and so terribly young. 

“We have to move away from the bodies, Kol,” I tell him.

“No,” he shakes his head. “I promised Mags. I can’t leave her.”

I don’t know who Mags is, but I understand his words. I understand promises. 

“Mags understands,” I whisper like a promise. “Penn would too. We have to move.”

He is so uncertain and small when he looks at me that for a moment I get a flash of a little boy scrambling behind me in a shimmering memory, tugging at my pigtails to try and get my attention. But the Kol of this moment finally notices my hand and lets me pull him towards where the others are sat by the water, seemingly in shock. 

Kol lets me guide him into laying down, overlooking the water. Joan is already on her side, shaking, but I don’t see anything else I can do. Lafferty sits half in the water, like he meant to wash the blood away but forgot what he was doing. I take a moment to join him, taking one of the water baskets from where they had left it before trying to come to our aid. Carefully, I fill it and pour it over the blood on his arms until it washes away. There is little I can do for the blood on his undershirt, so I carefully guide him to a place by Joan and push him to lie down.

Rory stands among them, watching as the hovercraft lifts away the bodies. 

“I didn’t even think about,” he says, not looking at me. “I just reacted and I killed her. How could I not even think about it?”

_ My fault _, I think again.

“You did what you had to,” I say, putting a hand between his shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault. It is the fault of those who put us here.”

It is the sort of thing I would never have said not two weeks ago. The sort of thing I barely would have allowed myself to think. When I decided to volunteer I thought it would be simple. Horrible, painful, and terrifying, but simple. I would die and the particulars did not much matter to the end results. I did not think I would experience any kind of ... transformation. I have never been a naturally brave person. This was supposed to be all that I could do.

‘_I was thinking that it was wrong and there was something in my power to change it. So I did what I could do_.’  
  
Could it really have only been two days since I’d said that?

What else could there possibly be left for me to do? To give? Yet I still have Penn’s blood under my fingernails from where I scrubbed it from Lafferty’s skin. The longer I am here, the more confusing and convoluted the task of ahead of me seems to grow.

“We got a gift while you were …. away,” he says, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Is that why you look like you got in a fight with a pond and lost?” I ask and I get the ghost of a smile in return.

“It’s an ointment of some kind,” he says. “For the chemical burns.”

He turns to rifle through the small pile of things we have accumulated and I can’t help my eagerness in following. Now that calm has finally settled I can feel the pain and itching growing stronger. 

We are both quiet for a moment while he passes me ointment for the worst of my skin. 

When I am done and ready to rinse off my hands, he snatches one hand up and turns it over. It is only now that I notice what he does - the split and bleeding skin from where I had been punching the invisible barrier separating us. I wince when he carefully applies more of the ointment to my knuckles.

“We got bread as well,” he says at last, dropping my hands. “Enough for … enough for everyone.”

“That’s good,” I say in a stilted voice.

“What now?” He asks, lost and uncertain and looking to me for an answer I don’t have. We should leave. Take to the trees and slip away now before we are in any deeper. Before we care anymore. We can take some of the bread, Rory still has the water tool, and I have my knives. We can leave and let others take care of our allies before we have to finish them as friends. But I don’t suggest it.

”That’s a question for the morning,” I say instead.

He looks me over and I try not to imagine what he sees. Gaunt, smeared with ointment, covered in chemical burns. I’m sure my short hair is now uneven and possibly even bald in some places. I am a far cry from the girl in the green silk dress on Reaping Day. Would I recognize myself when this is over?

Behind him, the farthest edges of the false sky starts to bleed pink. Morning is coming already. The second day.

”You need sleep,” is all he says.

“Probably,” I agree.

This time it is me pushed to lay down by gentle hands. I am sure I won’t be able to sleep, but my body apparently knows better than I do how tired I am and everything goes black almost as soon as I feel the sand on my cheek.

The next thing I know I am in a dusty old attic. The walls are painted with a familiar peeling purple. Nothing like the refined and ostentatious decor of the rest of the manor house. This ancient and tacky violet, slowly chipping away,was the very first act of rebellion I ever knew - before I was old enough to even understand the word or what it really meant. 

The air smells like dust and cat fur, which was right. But it also smelled of salty sea air and chemicals that felt distinctly out of time and place.

My memory was sure that the tables and chairs around me were supposed to be covered in books and papers and old antiques. I was pretty sure an empty space on the wall was supposed to be filled with a first place karaoke plaque that was made out to my grandmother and Porter Millicent Tripp. But the wall was bare and the room was empty but for the dust that hung in the air, catching the weak light coming in through the sole tiny window.

With me in the room is a woman I do not know. Her face seems to shift and change and for a second I think it is mine, until it settles and I recognize it from memories, photo albums, and old film reels of the games. 

Addelise Lynnwood stands before me, as young as she was the day she was reaped. 

“Didn’t I teach you better than this?” She asks, arching one judgmental brow at me.

Better than what?” I ask, confused because I have lived in this house and this attic my whole life.

“You think you’re the only one who came into these Games with lessons? This Game has gone on since before you were born. You are at the end now and you play like you’ve only just begun.”

“I just got here!” I fire back, standing up from my chair and causing dust to twirl around me in spirals of peeling light. 

“But who hasn’t!” She demands and her face is older now. “Someone has been playing this Game for years. Who?”

“The Capitol, obviously!” I fire back, stomping my foot and causing purple to peel up with my foot. “That’s a stupid question.”

“Who else, princess,” Addelise demands except now she is Haymitch, swaying with a bottle of white liquor in his hands. “Who else?”

“The victors?” I guess, frustrated with Haymitch as much as myself. I should know the answer, I think. It must be just out of reach.

Haymitch sneers. 

I ignore him because the answer feels so close, just out of reach. I turn towards the window, the one that doesn’t open, except I push it open now and reach for it - the answer must be just beyond my fingertips. But instead of grasping it, I lose my balance and tumble into open air.

I land hard but it doesn’t hurt. I’ve landed in a soft pillow of flowers: the garden in victor’s village. But when I open my eyes there is a girl lying in front of me too, but blood leaks from her mouth, her nose, her eyes. Her eyes are glassy and empty and grey; Seam eyes. My eyes. My eyes set in a softer face, more olive toned, with my grandmother’s nose and tight charcoal curls. She is younger than me, perhaps by a couple years, and in her cold ashen hand is a white rose 

I reach for it but when I touch the stem, I prick my finger and I am no longer in the garden. I am in my tanning room at Tobiah’s and my finger is bleeding. It is hot, like it always in when I am trapped in here in the heat of summer. I suck the tip of my finger in my mouth, hoping to stem the bleeding, but when I turn to my work table for a bandage Gale Hawthorne is already there with a small jar of ointment.

“Careful, Nymph,” he says casually, “you’re running out of time and someone is getting hurt.”

But the heat is growing until it almost feels like it could burn, the skin on my face begins to itch like something grainy rubbing against it. It makes me more aware of a dull itch and pain across most of my body. I don’t have time to answer Gale before I try to shake off the feeling on my face and my eyes fly open, momentarily blinded by the glaring sunlight reflecting off the lake. How I slept through it I can only begin to guess.

I stir and the voices behind me quiet. 

“Sleeping beauty wakes,” Joan jokes.

Stiffly, I sit up and try to roll the kinks out of my shoulders.

Tension still hangs in the hair, heavy and uncomfortable. I would have killed Joan yesterday if it wasn’t for the jabberyjays. I have no question about it, I had made up my mind. I don’t know yet whether I regret that I didn’t. I’m sure I will later, when either Rory or myself has to pay for it. 

But now Joan sits in a triangle with Lafferty and Rory, working their way through bread and oysters like this is a normal day and I simply dozed off at the picnic. Her spear is gone, somewhere off in the trees, and I doubt any of us are eager to venture into that section of the woods to find it. 

I stare at them, mouth open like I had something to say even though there was nothing that came to mind. Lafferty held out a roll and I bit off a chunk, staring at the sand.

“How long was I out?” I ask, directing my question at Rory.

“A few hours,” Kol answers instead. “We felt-”

He breaks off, looking unsure.

Felt what? That I needed the sleep? That it was better to leave me out of it, in case I rushed off into trouble again? Or perhaps they were uncomfortable after this morning, the way I almost took care of them before Rory coaxed me to sleep?

“Shimmer was with him,” I say, broaching the subject we all want to avoid instead of the one Kol seems to want to drop. “She ran after … after it went south for them. It makes me think she must be working separately from Slate.”

I see the tightness in Joan’s face when I look up. 

“Ogden was mad,” she notes, saying his name out loud for the first time. “His great uncle was a victor, never even met him. But he was the only one eligible. He shouldn’t have been in the pool in the first place and he felt that all of the attention and sponsors was on me. Then there was the matter of my alliances….” She broke off glancing at us but we all understood what she meant. “It wouldn’t have been hard for Shimmer to convince him to form a team so she could drop him on us.”

“She never wanted him as an ally,” I guessed. “He was just useful and the kind of weapon we’d take personally.”

Joan finches and Kol sets a hand over hers. Perhaps I was too blunt, but she nods. 

“Still doesn’t explain why she and Slate are working apart,” Lafferty redirects. “I would think with our alliance, they’d want to stick together even more. They seemed to be working together at the start.”

“Shimmer seems smart,” Kol observes. “Maybe Slate wasn’t being smart. He’s got a grudge after all.” His eyes flicker to me and I shrug. “Or they got separated. Either way, it means they’re both working solo now.”

“How do you know Slate is on his own?” Rory challenges. “He might have picked up teammates of his own.

“Who?” Kol asks, one eyebrow raised. “Slate doesn’t seem like a people person and I don’t think he would deign to take an alliance outside of the careers who are all either dead or accounted for.”

“I like that even less,” I say grimly. “That means we have two enemies enemies unaccounted for that could potentially attack.”

“Maybe the arena has been keeping them busy,” Joan offers, but it is a hollow comfort. 

It does, however, make my thoughts return to the arena. 

“Fog, monkeys, jabberyjays,” I say and I have her attention.

“All one right after another,” Joan nods and it almost feels like we are kids again, puzzling out the details of some prank.

“In a line down the beach,” I agree. 

“Almost like it was following us,” she nods and the others seem to be watching us, waiting to see what we are unfolding.

“Following us or were we following it?”

“Challenges that move around the lake, like the lightning,” she observes. “We saw it yesterday in the middle of the day and in the middle of the night last night.”

“The blood rain you all experienced as well,” I remind her needlessly. 

She grabs a knife that was strapped to her belt and uses it to draw a circle in the sand for the island. She begins to map out where we’ve encountered these things and it becomes more obvious.

“Here’s where we heard the insects,” I point and she scratches it in. 

“The tidal wave we saw,” Lafferty adds and Joan marks it without needing him to identify it. “A couple hours ago maybe?

“Here’s about where the lightning was,” Joan mumbles. “It kept striking that tree.”

“I remember,” I nod. “When I climbed up one of the trees to see the arena there’s an identical tree all around the island.”

Joan’s head jerks up at my word, checking to confirm. 

“There’s 12 of them,” I tell her urgently, and I see her face going red as she bites her lip.

She marks it down, 12 identical trees, adjusting the map to fit them. 

“The 12 spokes,” Kol adds. “Coming out of the cornucopia.”

“Like a wheel,” I agree, thinking of my first observations.

“No,” Rory says quietly. “Like a clock”


	26. Honey, you’re a shipwreck with your heart of stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knowing the arena is an advantage, but Cara might be the only one willing to use it

“He’s right,” Kol realizes, stunned. “Each hour, a new trap.”

“And we’ve been moving with the clock,” I point out urgently, almost eagerly. “We try to move farther down the beach to escape, but in doing so we just walk right into the next one. It’s why the jabberjays didn’t immediately start when we went into the jungle. It was still the monkeys’ hour.”

“But for the rest of the day, the jungle is safe then?” Joan suggested hopefully.

A plan starts to take shape in my head “All we have to do is move counter-clockwise,” I agree, adrenaline rising as I gesture. “The traps will drive them out of the jungle and we’ll be ready. We won’t be the ones taken by surprise anymore.”

I expect them to pitch in, to say something, but instead they’re all silent. I look up from our makeshift map to find them staring at me. 

I don’t grasp why they’re staring at me like this until I realize what exactly I’m proposing. Hunting….

_ Like you’re a career _, I think.

_ No, like they’re animals _, I realize.

Unbidden, Lyssa’s face comes to the forefront of my mind. She’s out there somewhere, surviving. I wonder if she’s by herself or if maybe she has found herself some allies. Perhaps Dee, Lafferty’s district partner, who we never found at the start.

“I’m thinking of Slate and Shimmer,” I say quietly, more subdued. “I don’t like the idea of leaving it to chance, waiting for them to strike first. This could be a good opportunity, especially if they haven’t figured out the arena yet. And we have no way of knowing how long that will be.”

It takes a moment, but Kol is the first to pull himself out of their unsettled silence. 

“Maybe,” he says diplomatically. “But I think I’d feel better setting up a home base. If we settle at the cornucopia, we’ll be able to see if anyone comes out on the beach.”

By that point, surprise wouldn’t be on our side. They would see us coming long before we reached them. I could work with that, given my bow. I’m no Katniss, but I’m getting better. And even with my knives I have a pretty good range. But it would be easy for Slate or Shimmer to slip back into the trees as soon as they saw that the odds were not in their favor.

The same voice which had told me earlier to escape with Rory urges me to push for this. It is the best plan. But they are all looking at me and Rory looks so uncertain and nervous. I never wanted him to have to do this. I wanted to keep his hands clean as much as possible and I’ve already failed.

From what I can remember, the closest Katniss or Peeta came to this was when Katniss blew up the supplies. Peeta had gone ‘hunting’ with the careers, but anyone could have seen his heart wasn’t in it. 

Earlier I had said that the Capitol had miscalculated; victors raised survivors, not other victors. But maybe that wasn’t entirely true. Maybe Addelise had. Or at the very least she had raised a career, the kind of person who could enter the games with the kind of strategy and ruthlessness it takes to come home. It was what she had wanted. A granddaughter who could make it home.

Was it what I wanted? 

I wonder how Claudius Templesmith is spinning this. I wonder what the commentary has been since I entered the arena. I remember Cinna’s words, saying that I was a good person and whatever happened in the arena wouldn’t change that.

I’d contradicted him. I told him everything would change. Was he watching right now? Was he wondering what I would say? Was he wondering if he had been wrong?

“You’re right,” I tell Kol, biting off my words even as they leave an aftertaste of dust and doubt. “We’ll go to the cornucopia.”

Around me, they all visibly relax. Joan is watching me more carefully than ever as Kol and I agree to go fill a couple baskets with drinking water before we go. Joan stands guard as Lafferty and Rory work to pack our meager possessions.

Kol doesn’t talk even when I hand him the knife to work open a hole into the tree. Kol, who always seems to have a quip or a comment or a joke. 

My face burns, but my shame causes me to become angry. A rock grows in my throat and a sick feeling takes root in my stomach.

This is the Hunger Games. Just because none of us asked for this doesn't mean we aren’t here and this isn’t real. Only one of us goes home. Waiting for someone else to play the game first just means someone else is already one step ahead of you. I’m more sure than ever that Rory and I have to go. This alliance, as good as it may feel, has always had an expiration date and it is one I can only see drawing closer and closer. I want us out and away from it before it comes. 

I pass Kol the first basket to fill and try to think up the best way for us to slip away. Nighttime would be easiest, but it is still morning and I don’t feel comfortable waiting so long. Far too many things could happen between now and then. I’ll have to play it by ear. I can only hope Rory will trust me, that he won’t decide his odds are better with this group that is set to inevitably implode. 

My free hand goes to the ring around my neck. If I have to, I can convince him to listen. But I don’t feel like this is the moment. There will be a point where it matters more.

When the second basket is full and our tools are tucked back into my belt, we set off back towards the beach. The others have already made their way towards the island, scoping out the cornucopia. Kol walks ahead carrying both baskets, leaving my hands free to draw the bow from my back and watch as we make our way to the closest spoke. He is perhaps 15 feet ahead of me when I feel it and stop only a couple feet onto the bar.

I don’t know if there is a shift in the air or the ground or the water, but I call ahead to Kol - almost 25 feet now . He turns to face me, concern but not alarm on his features, and that is when the earth twists. 

The world snaps into a blur and I fall, slamming into the sandy earth on the edge of the spoke. Scrabbling for a hold, I almost lose my grip on my bow and only just manage to shove my arm tighter to my side. But doing so leaves me fighting for a handhold with only one hand. The earth and sand break away underneath my fingers, scattering back into my face with the force of our movement.

I grit my teeth, trying not to scream, lest I risk biting off my tongue. The speed picks up and suddenly my hold is gone and I am flying. I have just enough sense to cover my head before I slam into the sand, feeling the air knocked out of me. I wheeze in sand, but the force of the throw sends me tumbling farther, choking on grit and feeling the leaves, roots, and vines tear into my skin and remaining garments. 

Rather than slow to a halt, I slam stomach first into a tree and finally land, gasping, choking, and heaving. The sand I’d breathed in scratches and scalds my lungs and throat, but my attempt to gasp for air instead comes out in the form of a wail. It would be embarrassing if I were not far more afraid of who might be waiting in the trees while I struggle to breathe. But it feels like someone’s boot is pressing down on my chest.

When I can finally gasp in air, I promptly roll over and vomit the contents of my stomach onto the jungle floor. The sand causes me to cough harder and my throat burns; sharper even than the acid fog. That at least had been a crescendo rather than this horrible and immediate slicing pain.

It takes me a few minutes to collect myself, to be able breathe without choking and to rise into a sitting position with my back against the tree. I’m proud that I managed not to collapse into my own sick, which is achievement enough.

I can see the light ahead of me, the break onto the beach not more than five feet from where I sit. Ignoring the throbbing pain in most of my limbs, I stumble to my feet. I don’t know where the others might have been tossed - they might have even only ended up in the water. I was the closest to the shoreline. It shouldn’t be impossible to find them. They’re probably looking for me.

A growl breaks through the normal jungle sounds and it is so familiar that my heart stutters in my chest. 

Stalking into the vines and undergrowth in front of me is a creature I know well. It followed me on countless nights, begging for the scraps of my dinner, and even hunting by my side at times. It is black and white with one single brown front paw. It looks at me with baleful yellow eyes that once watched me with its head in my lap. Caesar - not the host, but the dog I had named for him as a personal joke. The same one who had been trapped in the snare the night I first met Gale Hawthorne in the woods outside District Twelve.

Looking back, there were several things I knew in that moment:

First was that the Capitol was not only aware of my hunts but had been watching me. For how long, I wasn’t sure. Months? Years? Was it only since the announcement of the Quell or had their eyes been on me since Addelise’s funeral? My skin crawls with the notion that the freedom I had cherished had been nothing more than an illusion granted by a mocking Capitol. I wasn’t certain that they knew about the night I met Gale, but the fact that it is Caesar standing before me and not any of the others seems too pointed to be coincidence.

Second, I know that this imitation of my dog is not the same one I know. I doubt it will be swayed by past allegiance or scraps of food even if I had any to offer.

Third, I will not be making it to the beach. For the second time I have been separated from Rory and our allies, only this time I am alone.

**Author's Note:**

> And here is where we part from canon and Katniss's perspective. I'll confess I have historically been a snob who could never stand original character fics, but I have accepted my sin and thrown myself into the garbage can with my betters. I hope you'll have fun as well while I travel through the story I loved so much when I was younger.
> 
> I've got a fair number of chapters already written and ready to go, so for now we can expect pretty regular uploads. We'll see where it goes farther down the road!  
Comments, kudos, and brutal critiques are all well loved.


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